THE  UNIVERSITY 


OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 

220.5^ 

TOD3a 

cop.  2. 


: 


1 4  o  i  y 


LIBRARY 
OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


TRINITY  METHODIST  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH, 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS. 

TO  THE  ERECTION  OF  WHICH  THE  PROCEEDS  OF  THE  SALE 


OF  THIS  LITTLE  BOOK  ARE  DEVOTED 


Our  English  Bible 

How  We  Got  It 


WILLARD  N.  TOBIE 


Urbana,  Illinois, 
1905. 


/ 


Contents. 

Chapter  I. — General  Character  of  the  Bible. 

A  Book  of  Books. 

Chap.  II— Manuscripts. 

Ancient  Writing  Material. 

Origin  of  the  word  Bible. 

How  Ancient  Books  were  Multiplied. 
Chap.  Ill — Ancient  Versions. 

The  Septuagint. 

Other  Greek  Versions — Origen’s  Hexapla. 
Syriac. 

Egyptian. 

Old  Latin. 

Chap.  IV. — The  Vulgate. 

Jerome. 

Chap.  V. — The  Roman  Catholic  Bible. 

History  of  its  Canon. 

Its  Text. 

The  Douay  Version. 

ENGLISH  PROTESTANT  VERSION. 

Chap.  VI. — Wycliffe,  the  “First  Protestant.” 

Chap.  VII. — Tyndale. 

Events  between  Wycliffe  and  Tyndale. 
The  First  Printed  English  Bible. 
Martyrdom  of  Tyndale. 

Chap.  VIII. — From  Tyndale  to  King  James. 

Coverdale’s  Version. 

Matthews’  Bible. 

The  “Great Bible.” 

The  Geneva  Bible. 

The  Bishops’  Bible. 

Douay  Bible — Koman  Catholic. 

Chap.  IX. — King  James,  or  Authorized  Version. 

Why  and  How  it  Was  Made. 

Chap.  X. — The  Revised  Version. 

How  it  Was  Made. 

Why  it  Was  Necessary. 

American  Standard  Edition  of  1901. 

appendix  ami  ^Btbltagraphp- 


/ 


22  0.52 

f5&* 

COif  '  PREFACE 


f 

V 

? 


* 

J 


T 

td 

Of* 

J 

J 

v 


This  book  is  for  busy  people  who  run  while  they 
read.  Histories  of  the  English  Bible  abound;  but 
most  of  them  are  too  voluminous  to  be  popular.  This 
little  volume  was  written  to  be  read,  and  by  as  many 
people  as  possible :  hence  its  brevity  and  popular 
style. 

But  though  brief  and  popular  in  style,  it  was  not 
prepared  in  haste.  The  desire  for  historical  accuracy 
has  necessitated  a  year’s  study  and  rummaging  among 
the  authorities. 

After  the  material  was  gathered,  I  was  still  doubt¬ 
ful  about  adding  to  the  deluge  of  books.  But  having 
given  the  substance  of  this  book  in  a  series  of  ad¬ 
dresses  to  my  own  congregation,  I  was  asked  by  sev¬ 
eral  University  students  if  it  were  possible  to  secure 
this  matter  in  printed  form.  Their  interest  in  the 
subject  suggested  that  perhaps  other  young  peo¬ 
ple  would  be  interested  in  such  a  publication. 

The  book  has  a  double  mission.  Whether  these 
pages  in  themselves  are  worth  publication,  the  reader 
must  judge.  But  no  one  can  doubt  the  worthiness  of 
the  design  to  build  Trinity  Church  as  a  religious 
home  for  hundreds  of  students  at  the  University  of 
Illinois,  the  sole  purpose  to  which  the  proceeds  of  the 
sale  of  the  little  book  are  devoted. 

W.  N.  TOBIE, 

Pastor  Trinity  M.  E.  Church. 
Urbana,  Illinois,  June  27,  1905. 


Copyright,  1905,  by  Willard  N.  Tobie 


Published  by  the  Epworth  league  of  Trinity  Church. 


Cjraptw:  I. 

QJlwrarter  nf  the  ?JtbT t. 

“None  like  it !”  said  Joseph  Parker  of  London. 
He  meant  the  Bible.  Book  of  Books,  or  The  Book 
we  call  it — and  rightly.  Of  all  books  there  is  none 
other  like  it  in  character,  history,  richness,  and  power. 

“The  word  of  God  is  living,  and  active,  and  sharp¬ 
er  than  any  two-edged  sword,  and  piercing  even  to 
the  dividing  of  soul  and  spirit,  of  joints  and  marrow, 
and  quick  to  discern  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the 
heart.5’  This  is  the  Scripture’s  characterization  of 
itself.  The  Bible  is  a  very  old  book,  but  none  other 
is  so  much  alive.  It  is  active,  or  powerful ,  as  the 
King  James  Version  has  it.  What  other  book  has 
such  power?  It  has  rent  kingdoms,  overthrown  tyr- 
ranny,  built  civilizations.  Earth  has  trembled  with 
the  tread  of  armies  marching  in  defense  of  its  prin¬ 
ciples  or  for  their  overthrow.  In  these  milder  times 
the  roar  [of  battle  has  lulled,  but  the  war  of  words 
goes  on.  It  is  still  the  most  discussed  literary  pro¬ 
duction  in  the  world.  Its  principles  as  never  before 
agitate  the  nations.  It  is  the  inspiration  of  the  high¬ 
est  genius.  It  belongs  to  the  literature  of  power. 
It  is  sharp,  piercing,  and  quick  to  discern  the 
thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart.  No  other  book 
gets  so  close  to  us.  “None  like  it.” 

The  Bible  is  called  The  Book ;  but  for  many  rea¬ 
sons  it  is  important  to  keep  in  mind  that  it  is  also  a 


5 


6 


Book  of  books — a  library.  Though  usually  bound  in 
a  single  cover,  the  Bible  is  a  rich  and  varied  library 
of  sixty-six  books  according  to  Protestants,  and  of 
seventy-three  according  to  Roman  Catholics.  In  this 
library  are  found  books  of  history,  law,  poetry,  phi¬ 
losophy,  and  sermons.  It  contains  the  finest  hymn- 
book  in  the  world — the  Psalter.  Ruth  is  the  sweet¬ 
est  little  idyl  in  existence.  Two  books  are  semi- 
dramatic — Job  and  Song  of  Songs.  The  New  Testa¬ 
ment  contains  the  most  important  collection  of  letters 
ever  written. 

These  books  are  not  only  diverse  in  character, 
but  very  different  in  age  and  authorship.  The 
youngest  book  in  the  collection  is  a  little  more  than 
eighteen  hundred  years  old,  while  some  of  the  Old 
Testament  Scriptures  were  written  considerably 
more  than  three  thousand  years  ago.  Moses,  the 
author  of  the  oldest,  and  John,  author  of  the  latest 
book,  are  separated  by  about  fourteen  centuries.  A 
collection  of  books  written  during  so  long  a  period 
would  of  course  be  the  work  of  many  authors  of  vari¬ 
ous  temperaments,  education,  occupations,  and  sur¬ 
roundings.  Shepherds  and  kings,  fishermen  and 
scholars,  servants  and  priests  made  contributions  to 
this  wonderful  library. 

It  is  necessary  to  keep  in  mind  this  collective 
character  of  the  Bible.  If  critics  should  prove  that 
Esther  is  uninspired,  or  that  Jonah  is  a  fiction ;  that 
the  history  of  the  kings  is  unreliable,  or  a  whole  col¬ 
lection  of  Old  Testament  books  apocryphal,  in  no 
way  would  this  affect  the  reliability  of  any  book 
except  the  ones  in  question. 

The  Bible,  besides  being  diverse  in  the  character, 


7 


age,  and  authorship  of  its  books,1  was  originally  writ- 
ten  in  languages  no  longer  spoken  in  their  ancient 
forms.2  Except  for  some  Aramaic  in  the  late  books, 
the  Old  Testament  was  written  in  Hebrew,  and  the 
New  Testament  in  Greek.  Translations  have  there¬ 
fore  been  necessary,  or  the  written  word  of  God 
would  long  ago  have  been  forgotten.  As  our  personal 
spirit  never  loses  its  identity,  though  the  body  almost 
completely  changes  its  substance  oftener  than  every 
decade,  so  the  spirit  of  the  Bible  is  living  today  in 
all  its  ancient  vigor,  though  the  languages  which 
first  embodied  it  have  been  displaced  by  new  and 
living  tongues. 


# 


1  Hebrews  1:1. 

2  See  App. 


8 


Cjrapitr  II. 

ItfcmxTsrrTpts. 

The  books  of  the  Bible  were  first  written  on 
parchment  or  on  papyrus.1  Papyrus  is  a  kind  of  reed 
now  nearly  extinct.  Thin  strips  of  the  tissue  of  this 
reed  were  laid  side  by  side  with  edges  overlapping; 
another  series  was  laid  transversely  to  the  first  layer, 
and  then  the  whole  was  subjected  to  pressure.  When 
the  tissue  was  fresh  it  contained  a  gum  which  stuck 
the  edges  together.  The  result  was  a  fairly  good  pa¬ 
per,  although  we  should  now  consider  it  a  very  poor 
writing  material.  Our  word  payer  is  derived  from 
the  Greek  name  for  this  reed — papyros ,  and  this  in 
turn  came  from  its  Egyptian  name,  papu.  The  Greeks 
also  called  it  iyblos ,  and  they  called  the  books  made  of 
it,  biblia ,  from  which  the  word  Bible  is  derived.  We 
call  those  old  parchments  and  papyrus  rolls  manu- 
seripts  because  they  were  all  written  by  hand.  A 
single  word  often  contains  a  great  deal  of  history. 

The  original  manuscripts  of  Bible  writers  long 
ago  perished.  Papyrus  could  not  endure  much  hand¬ 
ling  and  would  soon  wear  out.  Parchment,  though 
more  durable,  would  also  wear  out  or  be  lost.  Many 
of  the  original  New  Testament  manuscripts,  it  is  sup¬ 
posed,  perished  in  the  early  persecutions  of  Christ¬ 
ians  ;  for  we  know  that  special  efforts  were  made  to 
destroy  their  sacred  writings.  But  from  the  very 
first  copies  of  these  autograph  manuscripts  were 
made ;  and  since  printing  by  movable  type  was  not 


1  2  Tim.  4*13.  2  John  12. 


9 


invented  until  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
all  copies  of  the  Scriptures  up  to  that  time  were  made 
by  hand.  Hand  work  is  not  only  very  laborious  and 
expensive,  but  it  is  more  or  less  inaccurate.  How¬ 
ever  careful  a  copyist  might  be,  mistakes  would  oc¬ 
cur.  Here  a  line  was  omitted,  there  one  word  mis¬ 
taken  for  another.  Sometimes  a  comment  written 
by  a  former  copyist  on  the  margin  of  a  manuscript 
was  taken  for  part  of  the  original  and  was  incorpo¬ 
rated  into  the  text.  The  next  scribe  who  copied  this 
first  imperfect  copy  would  preserve  all  its  errors  and 
perhaps  add  others.  As  a  general  rule,  therefore, 
the  older  a  manuscript  the  more  likely  it  is  to  be  cor¬ 
rect. 

But  the  reader  must  not  conclude  that  the  text  of 
our  Bible  is  hopelessly  corrupt.  Many  copies  of  these 
original  writings  were  made  by  different  scribes ; 
and  since  no  two  copyists  are  likely  to  make  the  same 
mistakes,  one  copy  acts  as  a  corrective  to  another.  If 
a  teacher  should  ask  ten  boys  to  copy  a  certain  para¬ 
graph  from  the  blackboard,  the  copies  would  proba¬ 
bly  not  all  be  alike.  But  no  two  boys  would  be  like¬ 
ly  to  make  the  same  errors.  By  comparing  the  ten 
copies  it  would  be  easy  to  reproduce  the  original  text 
even  if  it  had  been  erased ;  for  in  any  given  variation 
of  the  copies,  the  majority  would  probably  be  correct. 
Up  to  about  900  A.  D.  Greek  manuscripts  were  in 
capital  letters  writ  large  and  separate  from  one  an¬ 
other.  Such  manuscripts  are  called  uncials .  Those 
written  in  the  running  hand  used  after  that  time 
are  called  cursives  or  minuscules .  Now  we  have,  in¬ 
cluding  small  fragments,  about  one  hundred  and 
twelve  uncial  copies  of  the  Greek  New  Testament, 


10 


only  two  of  which,  however,  contain  all  the  books, 
while  two  more  contain  most  of  the  New  Testament. 
Altogether  both  of  uncials  and  cursives,  including 
quotations  found  in  ancient  church  reading  books, 
we  have  two  or  three  thousand  manuscript  copies  of 
all  or  part  of  the  New  Testament.  Besides  all  these, 
we  have  versions  of  the  Bible  which  were  made  earli¬ 
er  than  any  existing  Greek  or  Hebrew  manuscript. 
Quotations  from  the  Bible  found  in  the  works  of  an¬ 
cient  Christian  authors  are  numerous.  So  there  is 
abundant  material  from  which  to  ascertain  very  near¬ 
ly  what  the  original  text  was. 

Two  existing  Greek  manuscripts  of  the  Bible 
date  from  about  the  year  350  A.  D. ;  but  no  Hebrew 
manuscript  of  the  Old  Testament  is  older  than  the 
first  part  of  the  tenth  century,  A.  D.1  Yery  few 
early  Hebrew  manuscripts  exist.  The  chief  cause  of 
this  is  that  the  Christian  church  never  made  much 
use  of  the  Hebrew  Old  Testament  until  the  Protest¬ 
ant  Reformation.  Its  transmission  was  therefore 
left  to  Jewish  rabbis  whose  writings  had  no  such 
means  of  being  preserved  as  the  monasteries  afforded 
the  Christian  Scriptures.  Besides  this  it  was  cus¬ 
tomary  among  the  Jews  to  bury  manuscripts  that 
showed  the  least  imperfection,  either  through  age  or 
error.  More  will  be  said  about  ancient  Greek  manu¬ 
scripts  when  we  discuss  the  sources  of  our  late  Re¬ 
vised  Versions. 


1  Preface  to  R.  V.  of  1885. 


11 


Chapter  III, 

Jtnrtent  ^terstous. 

Owing  to  the  wide  dispersion  of  Jews  and  Chris¬ 
tians,  it  became  necessary  at  a  very  early  date  to 
translate  the  Bible.  The  most  ancient  version  of  the 
Old  Testament  is  a  Greek  version  called  the  Septua¬ 
gint,  which  means  seventy ,  from  the  tradition  that 
it  was  the  work  of  seventy  or  seventy-two  men.  The 
Pentateuch  was  translated  at  Alexandria  about  285 
B.  C.,  and  the  other  books  during  the  next  century 
and  a  half.  This  version  was  in  common  use  in  Pal¬ 
estine  in  the  time  of  Christ,  and  from  it  the  New 
Testament  writers  almost  invariably  make  their  quo¬ 
tations.  This  often  explains  why  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  quotations  do  not  always  agree  with  our  Old 
Testament;  for  the  Old  Testament  of  all  English 
versions  is  derived  directly  or  indirectly  from  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures — not  the  Septuagint.1 

As  time  went  on  the  text  of  the  Septuagint  be¬ 
came  very  uncertain,  and  other  Greek  translations 
were  made — the  most  important  being  that  of 
Aquila,  of  Theodotion,  and  of  Symmachus.  Finally 
Origen,  who  shared  with  Jerome  the  honor  of  being 
the  greatest  scholar  among  the  early  Christian 
fathers,  arranged  the  Hebrew  text  and  the  Greek 
translations  side  by  side  in  a  work  mostly  of  six  col¬ 
umns,  called  the  Hexapla. 

The  earliest  known  version  of  both  Old  and  New 

1  This  does  not  apply  to  the  Apocrypha  of  course,  as  we  shall 
understand  later. 


12 


Testaments  is  the  Peshitto,  a  Syriac  version  made  in 
the  second  or  third  century  directly  from  the  Hebrew 
and  the  Greek.  Some  of  the  books  of  our  New  Tes¬ 
tament,  however,  are  not  found  in  this  version,  viz: 
2  Peter,  2  and  3  John,  Jude,  and  Revelation.  This 
important  work  became  known  to  Europe  about  1652. 
Three  years  later  it  was  printed  at  royal  expense  in 
Vienna  from  two  rather  late  manuscripts.  Since 
that  time  many  fragmentary  manuscripts  of  this 
version  have  been  found, — two  of  them  dating  back 
to  the  fifth,  and  about  a  dozen  to  the  sixth  century. 
This  version,  made  so  near  the  apostolic  age,  is  valu¬ 
able  in  determining  the  original  form  of  the  New 
Testament.  Another  valuable  Syriac  version  of  the 
New  Testament  was  found  by  Cureton  in  a  collection 
of  manuscripts  brought  from  Egypt  in  1842,  and 
another  by  Mrs.  Lewis  in  1892, 1  which  date  back  to 
a  still  earlier  period  than  the  Peshitto. 

Then  there  are  two  Egyptian  versions,  the  Bohairic 
and  the  Sahidic,  both  nearly  as  old  as  the  Peshitto. 
Fragments  exist  also  in  other  Egyptian  dialects. 
Abyssinia  had  a  version  called  the  Aethiopic,  dating 
from  the  fourth  or  fifth  century.  Of  about  the  same 
date  is  the  Armenian  version  made  directly  from  the 
Greek,  and  the  Gothic  by  Bishop  Ulfilas  of  the  fourth 
century.  These  versions  are  all  valuable  in  deter¬ 
mining  the  original  from  which  they  are  taken. 

Christianity  spread  quickly  to  Latin  countries. 
Accordingly  we  find  a  very  early  Latin  version  of  the 
Bible  made  about  150  A.  D.  Its  origin  is  not  known ; 
but  it  is  thought  to  be  the  work  of  several  hands,  and 
to  have  originated  in  Northern  Africa.  Its  text  va- 


1  See  How  the  Codex  ivas  Found ,  by  Mrs.  Gibson. 


ried  greatly  in  different  manuscripts  and  in  different 
localities.  Scholars  generally  think  that  some  of  the 
variations  were  due  to  revisions.  It  seems  probable 
that  what  Augustine  called  the  Itala  was  a  revision 
of  the  Old  Latin  made  in  Italy.  This  Old  Latin  ver¬ 
sion  continued  to  be  more  or  less  used  in  the  Latin 
Church  until  about  800,  when  it  was  superseded  ev¬ 
erywhere  by  the  great  version  of  Jerome  called  the 
Vulgate.  This  version  deserves  a  chapter  by  itself. 


14 


<%pter  IV. 

Th*  HInTgat*. 

For  a  thousand  years  the  Latin  Vulgate  was  the 
Bible  of  Western  Europe.  It  was  virtually  without 
a  rival  from  the  seventh  century  until  the  Protestant 
Reformation.  It  is  still  the  authorized  Bible  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church. 

Jerome  was  the  greatest  scholar  of  his  age.  He 
was  born  about  340  A.  D.  and  died  at  Bethlehem  in 
420.  His  parents  were  Christians,  but  he  wai  not 
baptized  in  the  faith  until  he  went  to  Rome  to  study. 
Here  he  mastered  Greek  and  Latin  literature  and 
made  extensive  study  of  philosophy.  After  residing 
in  Gaul,  Aquileia,  and  Syria,  he  went  to  Chalcis  and 
spent  four  years  in  ascetic  life  and  study — particu¬ 
larly  of  the  Hebrew  language.  Then  he  was  ordained 
priest  at  Antioch,  and  later  went  to  Constantinople 
where  he  spent  three  years  in  close  intimacy  with 
the  bishop,  Gregory  Nazianzen.  In  382  he  was  sent 
on  a  mission  to  Rome,  where  he  became  secretary  to 
Pope  Damasus,  under  whose  auspices  he  began  re¬ 
vision  of  the  Old  Latin  version  of  the  New  Testament. 
In  386  he  became  head  of  a  monastery  at  Bethlehem. 
Here  the  fiery  old  saint  spent  the  rest  of  his  days 
pouring  out  vials  of  wrath  on  heretics,  writing  com¬ 
mentaries  on  the  Bible,  and  completing  his  famous 
version  of  the  Bible  into  Latin  which,  because  of  its 
wide  acceptance,  became  known  as  the  Vulgate,  that 
is,  the  version  in  common  use. 

Jerome’s  New  Testament  can  hardly  be  called  an 


15 


independent  translation,  for  it  is  merely  the  corrected 
text  of  the  Old  Latin  version  of  which  we  have  learn¬ 
ed.  Jerome  made  only  such  changes  as  he  thought 
to  be  absolutely  necessary.  Yet  of  course  he  referred 
to  Greek  manuscripts  of  his  day  in  order  to  decide 
what  changes  were  required. 

His  work  on  the  Old  Testament  was  not  pursued 
with  a  steady  purpose  from  the  beginning  to  the  end 
of  his  labors.  He  began  by  revising  the  Psalms  on 
the  basis  of  the  Septuagint  making  as  few  changes  as 
possible.  This  Roman  Psalter,  as  it  was  called,  was 
used  in  Italian  churches  until  the  fifteenth  century. 
But  so  carelessly  was  it  handled  by  copyists  that  Je¬ 
rome  was  requested  to  make  a  second  revision,  which 
he  did  on  the  basis  of  Origen’s  Hexapla.  This  be¬ 
came  known  as  the  Gallican  Psalter  because  of  its 
early  popularity  in  Gaul.  It  eventually  came  into 
general  use  in  the  Latin  Church ;  and  although  Je¬ 
rome  afterwards  made  a  translation  of  the  Psalms 
directly  from  the  Hebrew,  it  is  this  Gallican  Psalter 
which  is  still  found  in  the  ordinary  Vulgate.  It  is 
hard  to  wean  people  from  familiar  Bible  language 
even  though  it  is  wrong. 

After  translating  the  Old  Testament  books  from 
the  Septuagint  he  became  disgusted  with  the  bad 
state  of  that  text  and  resolved  to  go  to  the  original 
Hebrew.  Another  reason  for  abandoning  the  Sep¬ 
tuagint  text  was  that  the  Jews  in  controversies  with 
the  Christians  refused  to  acknowledge  it  as  the  au¬ 
thoritative  Scripture.  He  translated  all  the  books  of 
the  Hebrew  Old  Testament — the  books  now  found  in 
the  Protestant  Bibles.  Later  he  revised  a  part  of  the 


16 


Apocrypha1,  but  most  of  it  he  passed  over  because  he 
did  not  believe  the  Apocrypha  belonged  to  the  true 
Scriptures.2 

Jerome’s  work  was  the  best  of  all  ancient  trans¬ 
lations  ;  but  like  most  revised  versions,  it  aroused 
the  most  violent  opposition.  It  was  at  least  two 
hundred  years  before  it  became  the  commonly  re¬ 
ceived  version ;  and  even  after  that,  the  Old  Latin 
version  continued  more  or  less  to  be  used.  In  fact, 
as  already  said,  Jerome’s  translation  from  the  He¬ 
brew  was  never  adopted  in  its  entirety.  St.  Peter’s 
Church  in  Rome  still  uses  his  old  Roman  Psalter,  and 
the  rest  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  the  Gallican. 

So  great  were  the  discrepancies  between  Jerome’s 
version  and  the  Old  Latin  that  Rufinus,  a  former 
friend,  openly  charged  him  with  deliberate  falsifica¬ 
tion  of  Scriptures,  Other  prominent  churchmen 
looked  on  the  new  version  with  suspicion.  Neverthe¬ 
less,  by  its  merits  it  won  the  day  and  finally  became 
the  universally  accepted  version  of  the  Western 
Church. 


1  See  p.  17. 

2  Jerome’s  Prologus  Galeatus. 


17 


(%i}jtcr  V. 

Tfe  %nrcm  GJathnlit  %bk. 

1.  ITalin. 

It  was  said  above  that  the  Vulgate  is  today  the 
authorized  Bible  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  It 
was  made  such  by  act  of  the  famous  Council  of  Trent 
held  with  several  suspensions  between  the  years 
1545  and  1563  at  Trent  in  the  Tyrol.  This  council 
was  called  by  Pope  Paul  III  to  correct  certain  moral 
abuses  in  the  Church,  to  reform  discipline,  and  to 
check  heresy.  This  last  object  required  a  definite 
statement  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church. 

Protestantism  had  been  sweeping  over  Europe, 
and  its  doctrines  found  advocates  even  in  the  old 
Church  itself.  Protestantism  denied  the  authority 
of  the  pope  in  many  important  matters.  It  asserted 
that  men  were  made  just  before  God  by  faith,  not 
by  works.  It  declared  the  Scriptures  to  be  the  sole 
rule  of  faith  and  practice.  It  repudiated  the  tradi¬ 
tions  of  the  Church  and  the  decrees  of  councils  and 
popes  as  in  any  sense  equal  to  the  Scriptures  in  au¬ 
thority.  A  strong  evangelical  party  had  arisen 
among  the  Catholic  clergy,  and  between  these  pro¬ 
gressives  and  the  conservatives  a  continuous  battle 
went  on.  To  restore  peace  the  council  was  called. 
It  was  evident,  however,  almost  at  the  opening  that 
the  pope,  through  three  papal  legates  who  presided, 
had  control  of  affairs.  Consequently  the  reactionary 


18 


party  had  its  own  way  in  all  the  proceedings  of  the 
assembly. 

Among  the  very  first  discussions  of  the  council 
was  that  concerning  the  source  of  Christian  faith. 
Is  it  Scripture  alone,  as  the  Protestants  affirmed? 
To  admit  that  would  have  undermined  the  whole 
ecclesiastical  system  of  Rome.  And  so  they  decreed, 
It  is  both  Scripture  and  Tradition;  but  more — they 
are  of  equal  authority.1 

What  the  traditions  included  was  not  accurately 
defined.  Pallavicini,  one  of  the  Catholic  historians 
of  the  council,  says  that  on  this  point  there  were 
almost  as  many  opinions  as  heads.2  In  general  it 
means  all  the  teaching  of  the  Church  in  matters  of 
faith  and  practice  not  contained  in  Scripture.  Tra¬ 
dition  is  designated  by  Roman  Catholics  as  the  “un¬ 
written  word  of  God”  contained  in  the  “depository 
of  the  church.” 

The  interesting  preface  to  a  recent  American 
edition  of  the  Roman  Catholic  English  Bible  sum¬ 
mons  Paul  as  an  upholder  of  this  position  of  the 
Church.  “Wherefore,  brethren,  stand  fast,  and  hold 
the  traditions  which  you  have  learned,  whether  by 
word  or  by  our  Epistle.”  2  Thess.  2:14.3  “The 
Apostle  of  the  Gentiles,”  says  the  author  of  the  pre¬ 
face,  “thus  gives  precedence  to  the  unwritten  word 
of  God  presented  to  man  by  the  Church,” — a  state¬ 
ment  which  seems  to  claim  more  for  tradition  than 
did  the  decree  of  the  Council  of  Trent.  There  is 
certainly  no  precedence  expressed  in  this  text.  Any- 

1  Ranke’s  Hist,  of  the  Popes,  p.  57. 

2Istoria  del  Condlio  di  Trento,  Bk.  VI,  Chap.  XL 

t 

3  2  Thess.  2:15  in  Prot.  versions.  See  App. 


19 


how,  the  oral  teaching  of  an  Apostle  who  had  seen 
Jesus  and  conversed  with  other  Apostles  is  one  thing, 
and  that  of  ecclesiastics  separated  from  the  apostolic 
age  by  two  milleniums  is  another.  This  is  a  slight 
digression,  but  it  partly  explains  the  indifference  of 
the  Roman  Church  to  the  results  of  modern  Biblical 
scholarship,  and  her  lack  of  zeal  in  Bible  distribution. 

But  what  is  Scripture?  What  books  compose  it? 
To  this  inquiry  the  council  next  addressed  itself. 

The  reader  probably  knows  that  even  in  the  Pro¬ 
testant  Bibles  printed  a  few  years  ago,  several  books 
called  the  Apocrypha  were  bound  between  the  Old 
and  the  New  Testaments.  They  comprise  the  books 
of  I  and  II  Esdras,  Tobit,  Judith,  Wisdom  of  Solo¬ 
mon,  Ecclesiasticus,  Baruch,  The  Prayer  of  Manas- 
ses,  I  and  II  Maccabees,  besides  some  additions  not 
found  in  the  Hebrew  text  of  Esther  and  of  Daniel. 
Palestinian  Jews  and  their  successors  never  esteem¬ 
ed  these  books  as  canonical,  that  is,  divinely  inspired, 
and  authoritative  for  belief  and  conduct.  Protest- 
ents  everywhere  have  adopted  the  Jewish  canon. 
The  Alexandrian  Jews,  with  whom  originated  the 
Septuagint,  were  less  cautious  in  admitting  these 
late  and  doubtful  books  and  we  find  them  attached 
to  that  version.  All  these  except  I  and  II  Esdras 
(III  and  IV  Esdras  according  to  Roman  Catholics) 
and  The  Prayer  of  Manasses  were  declared  by  the 
Council  of  Trent  to  be  equal  in  sacredness  and  au¬ 
thority  to  the  rest  of  the  Old  Testament.1  Thus  it 
happens  that  the  Protestant  Old  Testament  has 


1  De  Canonicis  Scripturis,  decretum  ex  Concilio  Tridentino, 
Sec.  IV,  Loch’s  edition  of  the  Vulgate,  p.  XIV.  See  Appendix. 


20 


thirty- nine  books,  while  that  of  the  Roman  Church 
has  forty- six. 

The  decision  is  very  strange  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  the  testimony  of  most  of  the  early  Fathers  who 
had  the  best  means  of  knowing  the  common  opinion 
concerning  these  books  is  against  their  equality  with 
other  Old  Testament  writings.  The  earliest  catalogue 
of  Old  Testament  books  we  know  is  that  of  Melito, 
Bishop  of  Sardis,  in  the  last  half  of  the  second  century. 
A  quotation  from  a  letter  of  his  is  preserved  in  the 
Church  History  of  Eusebius  (about  324  A.  D).1  He 
says:  “ Accordingly,  when  I  went  to  the  East  and 
came  to  the  place  where  these  things  were  preached 
and  done,  I  learned  accurately  the  books  of  the  Old 
Testament.  I  send  them  as  written  below.”  Then  fol¬ 
lows  the  list,  identical  with  that  of  the  Protestant 
version  except  Esther.  This  omission  might  be  an 
oversight. 

Eusebius2  also  preserves  a  statement  of  Origen  of 
Alexandria  who  lived  between  the  years  186  and  253. 
“There  are  twenty-two  books’5,  says  Origen,  “accord¬ 
ing  to  the  Hebrews,  corresponding  to  the  number  of 
the  letters  of  their  alphabet.”  In  the  list  with  which 
he  follows  this  statement  are  found  all  the  books  of 
the  Protestant  canon  except  the  twelve  minor  proph¬ 
ets,  an  omission  which  is  clearly  an  accidental  over¬ 
sight  either  by  Origen,  Eusebius,  or  a  later  copyist, 
for  we  know  that  Origen  wrote  a  commentary  on  the 
Twelve  Prophets.3  In  addition  to  these  he  includes 


1  Eccl.  Hist.  26:13,  14. 

2  Eccl.  Hist,  bk  VI.  25. 

3  Euseb.  Eccl.  Hist.  VI.:36. 


21 


the  Epistle  of  Jeremiah  (that  is,  the  sixth  chapter 
of  Baruch),  and  the  two  books  of  Maccabees. 

Hilary,1  bishop  of  Poictiers,  France,  about  365 
A.  D.  gives  the  same  list  as  Origen  including  the 
Twelve  Minor  Prophets,  but  omits  Maccabees.2  He 
remarks,  somewhat  doubtfully,  “Some  add  Tobias 
and  Judith.55  Athanasius  (373)  rejects  Esther,  and 
adds  Baruch  and  Epistle  of  Jeremiah.3  Cyril,  bishop 
of  Jerusalem  (386)  gives  the  same  as  Athanasius, 
except  that  he  includes  Esther.  Gregory  Nazianzen 
(380),  Bishop  of  Constantinople,  gives  a  list  identical 
with  the  Protestant  canon,  except  that  he  omits 
Esther.4  He  adds,  however,  that  some  include  it  in 
the  canon.  With  the  exception  of  Esther,  these  wit¬ 
nesses  agree  on  all  the  books  of  the  Protestant  canon, 
and  disagree  on  the  apocryphal  books  of  Maccabees, 
and  Baruch;  while,  except  the  doubtful  reference  of 
Hilary  to  Tobit  and  Judith,  no  other  apocryphal  book 
is  mentioned. 

Besides  these,  we  have  the  somewhat  vague  tes¬ 
timony  of  Josephus.5  This  famous  Jewish  historian 
was  born  four  years  after  the  ascension  of  Christ,  and 
belonged  to  a  priestly  family.  He  says  the  Jews  had 
only  twenty-two  books  which  were  justly  believed  to 
be  divine,  and  that  the  canon  closed  in  the  time  of 
Artaxerxes  in  the  fifth  century  B.  C.  He  gives  no 
enumeration,  but  a  description  by  which  we  can  iden¬ 
tify  most  of  the  books.  Whatever  his  statement  may 


1  Prologue  to  the  Book  of  Psalms 

2  Epistle  39,  on  the  Feast  of.  the  Passover. 

3  Catechesis  IV,  de  Decern  Dogmatibus,  cap.  35. 

4  Carminum  bk.  II. 

6  Contra  Apion  bk.  1:8. 


22 


prove  in  favor  of  the  Protestant  canon,  it  is  strongly 
against  the  declaration  of  the  Council  of  Trent. 

But  what  says  Jerome  himself?  We  must  re¬ 
member  that  a  majority  of  witnesses  does  not  consti¬ 
tute  a  preponderaice  of  evidence.  Being  the  best 
Hebrew  scholar  of  his  day,  in  close  touch  with  prom¬ 
inent  Jewish  scholars  of  Palestine  his  testimony 
weighs  heavy.  He  openly  opposed  the  canonicity  of 
these  books.  In  one  of  the  prefaces  to  his  transla¬ 
tion  he  gives  a  list  of  books  found  in  the  Hebrew 
canon.1  This  list  contains  exactly  the  same  books  as 
the  Protestant  Bible.  “Whatever  is  outside  of  these,” 
he  adds,  “must  be  put  among  the  Apocrypha.”  In 
his  letter  to  Paulinus  On  the  Study  of  the  Scripture, 
Jerome  enumerates  the  books  of  the  Bible,  but  makes 
no  reference  to  any  apocryphal  book. 

The  sweeping  decision  of  the  Council  of  Trent  is 
scarcely  intelligible,  unless,  indeed,  it  was  on  the 
ground  that  in  393  the  Council  of  Hippo,  and  in  397 
the  Council  of  Carthage,  both  under  the  influence  of 
Augustine,  had  approved  the  most  of  the  Apocrypha, 
and  later  Pope  Innocent  had  approved  their  decision, 
If,  as  Romanists  assert,  the  deliverances  of  even  a 
provincial  council  when  ratified  by  a  pope  became  in¬ 
fallible,  how  could  the  Council  of  Trent  reverse  a 
former  finding?  That  would  imply  that  these  earlier 
councils  and  a  pope  had  made  a  mistake. 

A  queer  defense  of  this  generous  canon  is  found 
in  the  preface  to  the  edition  of  the  English  Catholic 
Bible  before  referred  to:  “As  to  the  first  part,  or 
Old  Testament,  the  version  always  recognized  by  the 


1  Prologue  Galeatus.  See  also  Preface  to  Books  of  Solomon. 


23 


Church  contains  many  more  books  than  that  used  by 
other  than  Catholics.  The  reason  of  this  discrep¬ 
ancy  is  that  the  Church’s  version,  the  Septuagint, 
the  Greek  translation  from  the  original  Hebrew,  and 
which  contained  all  the  writings  now  found  in  the 
Douay  Version,  as  it  is  called,  was  the  version  used 
by  the  Saviour  and  his  Apostles,  and  by  the  Church 
from  her  infancy,  and  translated  into  Latin,  known 
under  the  title  of  Latin  Vulgate,  and  ever  recognized 
as  the  true  version  of  the  written  word  of  God.”  As 
if  the  fact  that  the  Saviour  and  the  Apostles  quoted 
from  the  Septuagint  forever  settled  all  questions  of 
genuineness  and  authenticity  of  every  book  found  in 
the  Septuagint!  This  is  a  mode  of  reasoning  not 
confined  to  Roman  Catholics.  If  Christ  should  come 
today  and  walk  among  us,  he  would  certainly  quote 
the  version  in  common  use  among  the  people  to  whom 
he  might  be  talking;  but  this  would  in  no  way  settle 
questions  of  translation,  or  the  canonicity  of  any 
book  not  quoted  as  Scripture.  In  fact  it  is  a  ques¬ 
tion  whether  any  book  of  the  Apocrypha  was  ever 
quoted  as  Scripture  by  Christ  or  the  Apostles.1 

But  to  come  back  to  the  decree  of  Trent,  right 
or  wrong,  it  fixed  the  Roman  Catholic  canon.  The 
third  question  was :  What  text  of  these  books  is  the 
authentic  word  of  God?  The  answer  of  the  council 
was — The  Vulgate.  Thus  a  Latin  translation  mostly 
the  work  of  one  man,  some  of  it  very  hastily  done  in 
the  first  place,2  some  of  it  a  translation  from  a  transla¬ 
tion,  and  at  the  time  of  the  council  incurably  cor- 

1  For  a  different  opinion  see  Ency.  Biblica.,  Vol.  I,  p.  673, 
sec.  57. 

2  See  App. 


24 


rupted  in  text,  was  put  on  a  par  with  the  original 
Greek  and  Hebrew. 

It  was  then  decreed  that  no  private  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  Scripture  be  permitted — that  the  Church  is 
the  sole  judge  of  its  meaning.  Seventeen  years  later 
the  Council  finally  adjourns.  It  writes  at  the  end  of 
its  decrees,  “ Anathema  to  all  heretics,  anathema, 
anathema.’7  The  delegates  subscribe  their  names 
and  return  home,  having  pronounced  this  three-fold 
curse  on  those  who  deny  the  validity  of  their  de¬ 
cisions. 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  the  Vulgate  it  is 
but  fair  to  speak  of  its  history  after  the  Council  of 
Trent.  Publication  of  the  book  without  authority 
was  prohibited  under  penalty.  It  was,  therefore, 
left  to  the  pope  to  prepare  an  authorized  edition. 
Pope  Sixtus  V  (1585-1590)  entrusted  a  commission  of 
cardinals  and  scholars  with  the  task  of  examining 
the  best  manuscripts  of  the  Vulgate.  Great  labor 
was  spent  in  the  preparation  of  a  text.  The  pope 
himself  worked  at  it  diligently.  In  1590  appeared 
the  Sixtine  edition,  which  was  declared  by  the  pope 
to  be  Utrue,  lawful,  authentic,  and  unquestioned. 7 7 
It  was,  indeed,  a  good  text.  But  alas ! 

“  The  best  laid  schemes  o’  mice  and  men 

Gang  aft  agley.” 

Bellarmine,  a  Jesuit,  an  enemy  of  Sixtus,  induced 
Pope  Clement  VII  to  interdict  the  edition  of  Sixtus 
and  issue  another.  The  Clementine  edition  of  1592 
with  a  few  subsequent  changes  made  before  1598  is 
still  the  standard  edition  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church. 


25 


For  the  sake  of  clearness  it  will  be  helpful  to  re¬ 
view  the  character  of  the  Vulgate  as  we  have  it  to¬ 
day :  (1)  The  New  Testament  is  Jerome’s  revision 

of  the  Italian  form  of  the  Old  Latin  version.  (2) 
The  Psalms  are  the  Gallican  Psalter  of  Jerome, 
which  is  a  revision  of  the  Old  Latin  on  the  basis  of 
Origen’s  Hexapla  with  chief  reference  to  the  Sep- 
tuagint  form  of  that  text.  (3)  Judith  and  Tobit 
were  first  translated  by  a  friend  of  Jerome  from  the 
Aramaic  into  Hebrew  which  Jerome  then  hurriedly 
turned  into  a  free  Latin  version.1  The  rest  of  the 
Apocrypha  is  Old  Latin  unrevised.  (4)  The  other 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  are  fundamentally  Je¬ 
rome’s  translation  from  the  same  Hebrew  text  we 
have  today.  (5)  Because  of  contemporaneous  use 
with  the  Old  Latin  for  more  than  two  hundred  years 
much  of  the  phraseology  of  the  older  version  crept 
back  into  Jerome’s  text  and  hopelessly  corrupted  it. 
From  all  this  it  is  evident  what  a  composite  pro¬ 
duction  the  modern  Vulgate  is. 

The  best  existing  manuscript  of  the  Latin  Vul¬ 
gate  dates  from  716  and  is  known  as  the  Oodex  Ami- 
atinus.  It  was  copied  from  Italian  manuscripts  in 
Northumberland,  England,  by  command  of  Abbot 
Oeolfrid,  who  started  to  Rome  with  it  as  a  votive  of¬ 
fering  to  the  pope.  But  Ceolfrid  died  on  his  way  to 
Rome  and  the  fortunes  of  his  gift  are  not  fully  known 
after  that  time,  but  it  probably  reached  its  intended 
destination.  It  is  now  in  Florence.  There  are  some 
older  manuscripts  of  the  Vulgate  but  none  are  con¬ 
sidered  by  scholars  very  important  in  determining 
the  text  of  Jerome. 


1  Preface  to  Judith  and  Tobit. 


26 


We  shall  see  that  the  oldest  Greek  manuscripts 
used  by  the  late  revisers  of  the  English  Bible  are  old¬ 
er  by  at  least  350  years  than  the  best  manuscripts  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Bible. 

2. 

But  what  Bible  is  used  by  English  Roman  Cath¬ 
olics  who  cannot  read  Latin?  The  English  Catholic 
Bible  is  known  as  the  Douay  version.  The  New 
Testament  was  translated  at  Rheims  in  1582,  the  Old 
Testament  at  Douay  in  1609.  It  was  the  work  of 
some  English  scholars  who  fled  from  their  native  land 
during  the  persecution  of  non-conformists  under 
Queen  Elizabeth.  They  used  as  a  basis  not  the  orig¬ 
inal  Greek  and  Hebrew,  but  the  Latin  Yulgate,  which 
they  declared  to  be  superior  to  the  original. 

The  text  was  accompanied  by  savage  notes  against 
heretics.  Modern  editions  modify  the  tone  of  their 
notes,  but  at  every  point  uphold  the  doctrine  and 
usages  of  the  Roman  Church.  An  amazing  example 
of  this  is  found  in  Dr.  Challoner’s  notes  now  com¬ 
monly  appended  to  the  Douay  Bible.  The  comment 
on  I.  Cor.  14:16,  a  passage  which  certainly  seems  to 
be  opposed  to  the  use  in  church  services  of  tongues 
not  understood  by  the  congregation,  reads  thus  :  uThe 
use  or  abuse  of  strange  tongues,  of  which  the  apostle 
here  speaks,  does  not  regard  the  public  liturgy  of  the 
church,  (in  which  strange  tongues  were  never  used,) .  . . 
Where  also  note,  that  the  Latin  used  in  our  liturgy,  is 
so  far  from  being  a  strange  or  unknown  tongue,  that 
it  is  perhaps  the  best  known  tongue  in  the  world,"'  (The 


See  also  p.  48. 


27 


Italics  are  mine).  Some  of  the  renderings  also  are 
evidently  affected  by  the  views  of  the  Church.  For 
instance,  where  in  the  Protestant  version  the  words 
repentance  and  repent  are  used,  the  Douay  has  penance 
and  do  penance — a  very  different  thing  from  that  ex¬ 
pressed  in  the  Greek  word  metanoeo ,  which  signifies 
change  of  mind  or  motive,  and  consequently  a  change 
of  life.1 

Although  this  Bible  was  put  out  as  an  antidote 
to  the  Protestant  versions  then  in  use,  it  was  plainly 
influenced  by  the  Geneva,  Bishops’,  and  Wycliffe 
versions.2  Subsequent  revisions,  of  which  there  have 
been  many,  show  very  decided  deference  to  the  King 
James  version.  The  English  of  the  Douay  Bible  has  the 
merit  of  a  rather  free,  running  style ;  but,  while 
many  of  the  ridiculous  phrases  of  the  first  editions 
have  been  culled  out,  it  is  still  marred  by  many  un- 
English  and  painfully  literal  expressions.  For  ex¬ 
ample,  I  Pet.  5  :5,  “And  do  you  all  insinuate  humility 
one  to  another;”  Mat.  6:11,  “Give  us  this  day  our 
supersubstantial  bread”;  Mat.  18:6,  “But  he  that 
shall  scandalize  one  of  these  little  ones  that  believe 
in  me,”  etc. ;  Gen.  1 :3,  “Be  light  made”  ;  James  5  :17, 
“Elias  was  a  man  passible  like  unto  us:  and  with 
prayer  he  prayed  that,”  etc.  This  is  due  to  the 
translator’s  worship  of  the  Latin. 

We  have  now  traced  the  origin  and  history  of  the 
Bible  authorized  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  We 
have  seen  how  its  canon  is  derived  not  from  the  most 


1  Tyndale’s  Answer  to  More-Parker  Society,  p.  22. 

2  See  The  Part  of  Rheims  in  the  Making  of  the  New  Testament , 

p.  15-16. 


28 


ancient  authorities,  but  from  the  Septuagint;  that 
the  u authentic’  ’  text  is  not  that  of  the  oldest  Greek 
and  Hebrew  sources, — a  fact  which  will  appear  more 
forcibly  as  we  proceed, — but  of  the  Latin  Vulgate 
and  a  degenerate  text  of  that ;  and  that  the  Douay 
Version  is  based  on  the  Vulgate. 


29 


gnfflish  protest ant  Ttersimts* 

Chapter  VI, 

Mgdiffe. 

On  a  warm  May  day  in  1382  in  Blackfriar’s  Monas¬ 
tery,  London,  an  assembly  of  monks  and  begging  Fri¬ 
ars,  doctors  of  the  Church  and  prelates  dressed  in  gor¬ 
geous  robes  had  gathered  at  the  call  of  Courtenay, 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  Excitement  was  intense. 
What  was  it  all  about?  Why,  a  pale,  spare  man 
weakened  by  study  and  abstemious  habits,  had  lately 
been  shaking  the  very  foundations  of  the  Church. 
He  was  professor  at  Oxford  and  parish  priest  at  Lut¬ 
terworth.  Those  were  days  when  it  made  a  difference 
what  a  man  believed ;  and  so  this  council  had  been 
called  to  try  this  troublesome  man  for  heresy.  Twice 
before  he  had  stood  on  trial  before  a  similar  council 
and  had  been  saved  by  friends  who  violently  broke 
up  the  assembly.  But  on  this  third  summons,  be¬ 
cause  of  sickness  it  is  supposed,  he  did  not  come.  So 
the  trial  proceeded  without  the  defendant.  Who  was 
he?  None  other  than  John  Wycliffe,  a  devout  Cath¬ 
olic,  yet  truly  called  “The  First  Protestant”.  For 
what  fearful  heresy  or  crime  had  he  been  arraigned? 
For  drunkenness,  or  lust,  or  treason  to  the  king?  No. 
Church  dignitaries  in  those  days  would  hardly  have 
noticed  these.  But  he  had  attacked  the  pretensions 
of  the  Church  to  the  supreme  power  in  the  State.  He 
had  denounced  indulgences,  pilgrimages,  worship  of 
relics  and  images  of  saints,  and  adoration  of  the  saints 
themselves.  He  had  denied  the  power  of  the  Church 
to  excommunicate  one  from  the  kingdom  of  God  un- 


30 


less  he  had  first  excommunicated  himself.  Worse 
yet,  he  had  denied  that  the  bread  and  wine  of  the 
Lord’s  Supper  are  really  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ. 
Then,  too,  this  arch-heretic  had  appealed  to  the  Bi¬ 
ble  as  the  one  ground  of  faith,1  and  had  asserted  the 
right  of  every  man  to  examine  the  Bible  for  himself. 
He  was  at  that  very  time  engaged- in  a  translation  of 
the  Scripture  into  the  English  tongue,  although  this 
does  not  appear  as  a  formal  charge  against  him.  A 
third  time  violence  was  to  mar  the  proceedings  of  a 
council  called  to  consider  the  case  of  this  pale  little 
man,  but  this  time  it  was  the  violence  of  nature.  In 
the  midst  of  their  deliberations,  suddenly  London 
was  shaken  by  an  earthquake  violent  enough  to  over¬ 
turn  steeples  and  shake  stones  out  of  castle  walls. 
England  had  seldom  felt  the  like  before.  Every  one 
in  the  great  hall  was  dumfounded  except  the  hardy 
Primate,  who  exclaimed  that  the  expulsion  of  noxious 
vapors  from  the  earth  was  of  good  omen  for  the  ex¬ 
pulsion  of  ill-humors  from  the  Church.  Fear  was 
allayed,  the  council  proceeded,  and  Wycliffe’s  doc¬ 
trines  were  condemned.  Shortly  afterward  he  was 
expelled  from  Oxford,  and  Lollardry — as  his  system 
was  called — was  finally  suppressed. 

But  quietly  at  his  little  parsonage  at  Lutterworth 
Wycliffe  continued  to  forge  his  mightiest  weapon 
against  the  abuses  of  the  Church — the  Bible  in  the 
English  tongue.  Nicholas  Hereford,  his  Oxford 
friend,  assisted  him  in  the  task.  It  is  generally 
thought  that  the  most  of  the  Old  Testament  was 
Hereford’s  work.  But  when  he  had  proceeded  as  far 


1  Select  Works  of  John  Wycliffe.  Arnold,  Vol.  1 11-495. 


31 


as  the  middle  of  Baruch,  he  too  received  a  summons 
to  London  for  heresy.  He  was  excommunicated  and 
in  1382  he  left  England.  Wycliffe  then  revised 
Hereford’s  work  and  translated  the  rest  of  the  Bible. 

But  the  reformer  was  not  to  be  left  in  peace.  A 
summons  came  from  the  pope  himself  to  come  to 
Rome  to  answer  the  charge  of  heresy.  Wycliffe  knew 
perfectly  what  that  meant.  The  indomitable  spirit 
of  the  old  reformer  is  shown  in  his  sarcastic  refusal 
to  obey.  Wycliffe  was  the  braver  because  he  knew 
his  departure  could  not  in  any  event  be  long  delayed. 
On  the  last  Sunday  of  the  year  1384  while  hearing 
mass  with  his  flock  at  Lutterworth,  he  was  suddenly 
stricken  with  paralysis,  and  the  tongue  which  had 
shaken  the  foundations  of  the  throne  of  “Anti- 
Christ3’,  as  he  had  dubbed  the  pope,  never  spoke  again . 
The  next  day,  the  last  of  the  year,  he  died.  Thus 
passed  away  one  of  God’s  noblemen,  a  man  valiant  for 
the  truth.  A  petition  was  sent  to  the  pope  asking 
that  Wycliffe’s  body  be  exhumed  and  buried  in  a 
dunghill.  To  his  everlasting  honor,  he  refused  it. 
But  years  afterward,  by  order  of  the  Council  of 
Constance,  the  reformer’s  remains  were  dug  up, 
burned,  and  hurled  into  the  river  Swift. 

The  Bible  of  Wycliffe  and  Hereford  was  the  first 
complete  translation  of  the  Scriptures  in  the  English 
tongue.  Other  partial  translations  had  been  made 
in  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  days,  but  not  for  general  use. 
Wycliffe  may  properly  be  called  the  John  Baptist  of 
a  new  dispensation  in  English  Bible  translation. 
This  version  was  made  from  the  Vulgate;  for  the 
translators  had  no  access  to  original  Greek  and  He¬ 
brew  sources,  and  could  not  have  read  them  if  they 


32 


had.  The  English  of  Hereford  and  of  Wycliffe  exhibits 
a  great  difference  in  style.  Hereford  was  somewhat 
pedantic  and  over-literal ;  Wycliffe  used  the  homely 
language  of  the  common  man.  This  discrepancy  was 
so  noticeable  that  Purvey,  a  close  friend  of  Wycliffe, 
made  a  revision  which  appeared  in  1388,  and  gener¬ 
ally  displaced  the  earlier  version.  The  strong  and 
symple  style  of  this  English  Bible  influenced  every 
later  version  ;  and  many  of  the  felicitous  expressions 
of  even  our  latest  version  can  be  traced  directly  to 
the  Wycliffe  Bible. 

Two  things,  however,  conspired  to  limit  the  cir¬ 
culation  of  this  first  complete  English  Bible.  It  ap¬ 
peared  about  seventy  years  before  printing  was  in¬ 
vented,  and  was  consequently  a  manuscript  Bible, 
too  expensive  for  people  of  ordinary  means.  A 
charge  which  has  come  down  to  us  made  against 
Nicolas  Belward,  a  heretic,  was  that  he  had  bought 
a  New  Testament  for  four  marks  and  forty  pence,  a 
sum  now  equal  to  more  than  $200. 1  Foxe,  who  lived 
a  hundred  years  after  Wycliffe,  says:  “After  Wyc- 
liffe’s  time  some  gave  a  load  of  hay  for  a  few  chap¬ 
ters  of  St.  James  or  St.  Paul.” 

Secondly,  except  to  those  who  “had  license  there¬ 
to,”  the  reading  of  this  Bible  was  prohibited  by  the 
Church  under  severe  penalties.  The  bishops  and  the 
friars  made  strong  efforts  to  stamp  out  this  version 
as  if  it  were  the  plague,  and  unlicensed  possessors  of 
a  copy  were  not  safe  from  the  vigilance  of  the  au¬ 
thorities.2  But  in  spite  of  these  restrictions  it  se- 

1  See  Trevelyan’s  England  in  the  Age  of  Wycliffe ,  p.  342. 

Introduction  to  Bagster’s  English  Hexapla. 

2  Trevelyan,  pp.  130,  342,  361. 


33 


cured  considerable  circulation.  People  gathered  in 
little  meetings  to  hear  it  read  or  recited  by  one  who 
knew  it  by  heart,  or  to  listen  to  one  of  Wycliffe’s 
upoor  priests’5  expound  it.  Such  meetings  of  course 
were  often  held  at  the  peril  of  being  burned  at  the 
stake,  for  the  spies  of  the  Church  were  alert.  Surely 
the  kingdom  is  coming,  for  today  the  Bible  is  the 
cheapest  of  books,  and  great  organized  agencies  exist 
solely  to  teach  it  or  to  send  it  to  the  ends  of  the  earth 
in  the  language  of  the  common  people. 


34 


Cjrepier  VII. 

Tgitdale. 

Wycliffe’s  work  was  only  a  prophecy  of  greater 
things  to  be  done — the  “Morning  Star”  that  heralded 
the  coming  day.  He  had  given  the  English  people  a 
taste  for  the  word  of  God,  and  henceforth  all  the  pow¬ 
er  of  Ohnrch  and  State  could  not  keep  it  from  them.  A 
hundred  years  pass  by,  and  another  valiant  man 
champions  the  cause  of  truth, — William  Tyndale,  dis¬ 
tinguished  scholar  of  Oxford  and  of  Cambridge. 

In  that  hundred  years  two  momentous  events  had 
happened.  The  first  was  the  invention  of  printing, 
which  had  made  a  hand-written  book  a  curious  relic 
of  the  past.  It  had  taken  almost  a  year  to  make  a 
single  copy  of  Wycliffe’s  Bible.  Today  a  single  Lon¬ 
don  firm  can  make  Bibles  at  the  rate  of  two  a  minute. 
Even  by  the  slow  hand  presses  of  Tyndale  ?s  time 
thousands  of  copies  were  made  while  one  had  been 
made  before.  If  the  powers  of  Church  and  State 
could  not  exterminate  the  handwritten  Bibles,  what 
could  they  do  with  a  printed  Bible?  Nevertheless 
they  tried. 

The  second  important  occurrence  was  the  capture 
in  1453  of  Constantinople  by  the  Turks.  From  that 
city,  the  home  of  Greek  learning,  scholars  fled  to 
western  Europe,  especially  to  Italy,  where  already  a 
there  was  a  keen  interest  in  Greek  studies,  and  there¬ 
fore  these  teachers  were  welcomed.  With  them 
came  a  better  knowledge  of  the  Greek  language. 
With  them  they  brought  the  classic  literature  of 


35 


ancient  Greece,  the  works  of  the  early  church  Fathers 
who  wrote  in  Greek,  and — more  important  than  all — 
the  Greek  New  Testament  and  the  ability  to  read 
it.  “  Greece  rose  from  the  grave  with  the  New 
Testament  in  her  hand.” 

In  this  way  came  to  western  universities  a 
knowledge  of  Greek  New  Testament  manuscripts  so 
long  forgotten  and  unread.  Erasmus,  one  of  the 
most  learned  men  of  the  sixteenth  century,  having 
gone  to  Italy  in  1506  where  he  perfected  his  knowl¬ 
edge  of  Greek,  came  to  Cambridge  University,  where 
from  about  1511  to  1514  he  was  professor  in  theology 
and  Greek.  During  his  stay  at  Cambridge  he  was  at 
work  on  his  famous  edition  of  the  Greek  New  Testa¬ 
ment  which  he  published  at  Basel  in  1516.  As  a  work 
of  scholarship  it  is  not  remarkable,  but  judged  by  its 
influence  it  is  one  of  the  most  noteworthy  books  ever 
published.  A  writer  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica 
says:  “It  contributed  more  to  the  liberation  of  the 
human  mind  from  the  thraldom  of  the  clergy  than  all 
the  uproar  and  rage  of  Luther’s  many  pamphlets.” 
In  view  of  the  profound  influence  of  this  Greek  New 
Testament  in  advancing  the  Protestant  Reformation, 
it  is  not  strange  that  Thomas  Gardiner,  Bishop  of 
Winchester,  called  Erasmus  “the  odious  bird”  which 
laid  the  egg  hatched  by  Luther. 

Erasmus  did  little  to  solve  the  problem  of  what 
the  original  text  of  the  New  Testament  was :  he 
merely  raised  the  question.  The  same  can  be  said  of 
the  Complutensian  Polyglot,  a  Greek  New  Testament 
by  Cardinal  Ximenes  which  appeared  soon  after. 
Erasmus’  first  edition  contained  a  Greek  text  founded 
on  two  late  Basel  manuscripts  collated  with  two  oth- 


36 


ers,  and  along  side  of  it,  a  Latin  translation.  Re¬ 
prints  of  this  work  were  made  in  1519,  1522,  1527,  and 
1535,  in  which  many  changes  were  made.  In  the  edi¬ 
tion  of  1522  the  spurious  passage  in  I  John  5  :7  was 
admitted  on  the  evidence  of  a  single  manuscript. 
These  editions  had  little  critical  value,  but  one  thing 
they  did :  they  brought  scholars  back  to  original 
sources  for  the  word  of  God,  and  emphasized  the  fact 
that  the  Vulgate  was  not  only  a  second  hand  docu¬ 
ment,  but  that  it  was  in  many  particulars  erroneous. 

At  the  same  time  came  renewed  interest  in  He¬ 
brew.  For  centuries  this  noble  language  had  been 
neglected.  Even  as  far  back  as  Christ’s  day,  the  Sep- 
tuagint,  or  Greek  Old  Testament,  was  used  by  all 
Jews  except  Palestinian  rabbis.  The  conflict  of  the 
early  Christian  Church  with  Judaism  intensified  the 
dislike  of  the  Church  toward  anything  Jewish ;  and 
so  Hebrew  manuscripts  were  often  regarded  with 
suspicion.  Thus  Hebrew  even  more  than  Greek  was 
a  forgotten  language.  We  have  spoken  of  Jerome  as 
a  notable  exception  to  this  rule.  But  Hebrew  shared 
in  the  revival  of  classical  studies,  and  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment  was  in  a  sense  rediscovered.  Johann  Reuchlin, 
who  learned  Hebrew  in  Italy,  published  in  1506  a 
Hebrew  grammar;  and  with  this  began  the  study  of 
Hebrew  in  Germany. 

For  the  first  time,  therefore,  original  sources  for 
an  English  translation  of  the  Scriptures  and  the 
means  of  rapidly  diffusing  them  were  at  hand,  await¬ 
ing  only  the  man  with  sufficient  courage  and  ability 
to  use  them.  That  man  was  William  Tyndale. 

One  hundred  years  after  the  death  of  Wycliffe 
and  one  year  after  the  birth  of  Luther,  Tyndale  was 


37 


born.  After  graduating  at  Oxford  he  went  to  Cam¬ 
bridge  where  he  remained  until  1521.  He  had  al¬ 
ways  been  fond  of  the  study  of  the  Scriptures,  but 
during  these  years  at  Cambridge  his  spirit  was  deep¬ 
ly  moved  by  the  New  Testament  of  Erasmus.  From 
the  time  when  he  began  to  study  the  Scriptures  in 
the  original,  his  enthusiasm  would  not  let  him  keep 
to  himself  his  newly  found  treasure.  He  debated 
with  priests  and  scholars  urging  them  to  study  the 
Bible.  “If  God  spare  my  life,”  he  exclaimed  to  an 
opponent  in  debate,  whose  words  had  stung  him,  UI 
will  cause  a  boy  that  driveth  the  plow  shall  know 
more  of  the  Scripture  than  thou  dost.”  It  was  no 
idle  boast.  To  this  great  purpose  he  gave  his  work 
and  his  life  at  last. 

But  the  plow-boy  to  know  the  Scripture  must 
have  it  in  his  own  tongue.  Tyndale  applied  to  Tuns- 
tall,  Bishop  of  London,  who  was  reputed  to  be  a  pat¬ 
ron  of  the  new  learning,  for  permission  to  translate 
the  Bible  at  the  Bishop’s  residence  and  under  his 
supervision.  He  was  refused.  But  he  found  shelter 
with  a  merchant-alderman,  and  quietly  for  half  a 
year  worked  away  at  his  English  translation. 

But  danger  threatened.  King  Henry  VIII  and 
his  ecclesiastical  supporters  were  making  havoc  with 
Lutheran  sympathizers.  Tyndale  saw  men  led  to 
death  for  denouncing  either  the  errors  of  the  Church 
or  the  crimes  of  the  king.  People  were  imprisoned 
or  killed  merely  for  reading  the  works  of  Luther : 
how  then  could  a  translator  of  the  Bible  be  safe?  UI 
understood  at  the  last,”  says  Tyndale,  “not  only  that 
there  was  no  room  in  my  lord  of  London’s  palace  to 
translate  the  New  Testament,  but  also  that  there  was 


38 


no  place  to  do  it  in  all  England. ”  1  And  so,  assisted  by 
Monmouth,  his  alderman  patron,  with  an  annual  gift 
of  ten  pounds,  he  left  England  for  Hamburg  and 
never  again  saw  his  native  land. 

In  constant  danger  he  pursued  his  work  of  trans¬ 
lation,  until  at  last  his  manuscript  was  in  the  hands 
of  a  printer  in  Cologne.  But  trouble  ever  dogged 
his  heels.  Well  had  the  secret  been  kept  from  the 
spies  of  the  Church,  of  Henry  VIII,  and  of  the  Con¬ 
tinental  authorities,  who  were  all  working  to  com¬ 
pass  the  destruction  of  the  zealous  translator.  But 
Cochlaeus,  a  priest,  overhearing  the  conversation 
of  some  printers  which  aroused  his  suspicion,  invited 
them  to  his  quarters,  got  them  drunk,  and  learned 
that  the  English  New  Testament  was  being  printed 
in  their  shop.  He  quickly  took  means  to  have  the 
authorities  arrest  Tyndale  and  seize  his  manuscript 
and  the  printed  sheets.2  A  hurried  warning  reaches 
Tyndale.  He  rushes  to  the  printer’s,  seizes  his  pre¬ 
cious  work  of  years,  and  escapes  to  Worms,  a  Prot¬ 
estant  city.  Here  he  accomplished  his  design.  Six 
thousand  copies  of  the  New  Testament  were  pub¬ 
lished  in  1525,  the  first  edition — that  begun  at  Co¬ 
logne — with  notes,  and  the  second  without,  in  order 
that  the  books  might  not  be  recognized  by  means  of  the 
description  Cochlaeus  had  sent  to  England.  Early 
in  1526,  thanks  to  the  generosity  of  English  mer¬ 
chants  who  kept  Tyndale  supplied  with  funds,  copies 
of  this  first  printed  English  New  Testament  began 


iTynd  ale’s  Preface  to  “  The  fyrst  boke  of  Moses  called  Gene¬ 
sis ”  1531. 

2  Cochlaeus’  Be  Actis  et  Scriptis  Martini  I/utheri,  quoted  in 
Arber’s  preface  to  The  First  English  New  Testament. 


39 


to  flow  into  England,  and  by  being  smuggled  in  bar¬ 
rels  and  boxes  of  other  goods  were  soon  scattered 
through  the  country. 

Tunstall,  Bishop  of  London,  backed  by  royal  au¬ 
thority,  determined  to  stop  this  importation.  Find¬ 
ing  that  seizing  copies  and  solemnly  burning  them 
with  public  denunciation  was  useless,  he  sent  a  mer¬ 
chant  by  the  name  of  Pakington,  a  secret  friend  of 
Tyndale,  to  Germany  to  buy  of  Tyndale  all  his  Bibles. 
Tyndale  was  glad  of  the  chance,  for  his  funds  were 
low,  and  but  for  some  such  luck  as  this  he  must 
needs  go  out  of  the  Bible  business.  uAnd  so,”  re¬ 
marks  the  old  chronicler  Halle,  who  tells  this  story, 
“the  bishop  had  the  Bibles,  Pakington  had  the 
thanks,  and  Tyndale  had  the  money.”  These 
“naughty  books,”  nevertheless,  came  into  England 
faster  than  ever.  Tyndale  continued  to  revise  and 
improve  his  work  and  used  his  funds  in  issuing  other 
editions — one  in  1529  and  the  last  in  1534.  Mean¬ 
while  his  translation  of  the  Pentateuch  appeared  in 
1530,  and  Jonah  in  1531.  Tyndale  never  made  a 
complete  translation  of  the  Old  Testament. 

It  is  not  strange  that  the  authorities  of  the  Church 
should  violently  oppose  the  circulation  of  this  trans¬ 
lation,  for  the  first  or  quarto  edition  of  1525  was  ac¬ 
companied  with  notes,  some  of  which  were  vigorous¬ 
ly  anti-papal.  When,  for  example,  these  notes  ex¬ 
plain  that  the  pope’s  bull  has  slain  more  than  Aaron’s 
calf,  it  is  not  strange  that  loyal  Papists  should  ob¬ 
ject.  Yet  these  notes  alone  do  not  account  for  the 
opposition  of  the  Bishops.  They  opposed  Bible 
translation  as  a  principle :  if  not,  why  did  not 
Tunstall  permit  Tyndale  to  work  in  the  Bishop’s 


40 


palace  and  under  his  supervision?  He  might  have 
prevented  the  anti-papal  notes  and  had  an  English 
Bible  to  his  own  liking.  The  only  adequate  expla¬ 
nation  is  that  he  did  not  want  an  English  Bible  at 
all. 

What  of  the  translation  itself?  Well,  it  was  the 
first  printed  English  Bible,  and  the  very  first  English 
version  to  be  made  from  the  Greek  and  Hebrew. 
Wycliffe’s  Bible  and  the  fragmentary  versions  made 
in  Anglo-Saxon  days  had  been  made  from  the  V ul- 
gate.  Tyndale’s  Greek  sources,  however,  were  neither 
abundant  nor  critically  valuable,  for  he  used  the 
Greek  text  of  Erasmus.  For  the  Old  Testament  he 
used  the  same  text  we  have  today — the  Massoretic, 
as  it  is  called.  Except  for  some  renderings  into  local 
or  provincial  terms,  the  work  was  admirably  done. 
Instances  of  local  coloring  are  the  following : 

Luke  2  :3  And  every  man  wente  in  to  his  owne 
shire  toune  there  to  be  taxed.  ” 

I  Cor.  16  :8  “I  will  tarry  at  Ephesus  til  Whitsun¬ 
tide.” 

1  Pet.  5:3  uBe  not  as  lordes  over  the  parishes” 

But  such  local  coloring  was  hardly  a  fault.  To 
the  common  people  it  helped  to  make  the  Bible  a  liv¬ 
ing  book.  In  fact  so  admirable  was  Tyndale’s  lan¬ 
guage  for  strength  and  purity,  that  it  became  the  foun¬ 
dation  of  all  subsequent  English  versions.  Much  of 
the  King  James  version  follows  it  word  for  word.  Even 
the  Douay  version  shows  the  powerful  influence  of 
Tyndale’s  rich  and  striking  English.  For  the  pure 
and  beautiful  English  of  our  latest  version  we  are  in¬ 
debted  to  this  heroic  man  of  learning  who  seems  in¬ 
deed  to  have  kept  in  mind  the  “boy  that  drive th  the 


41 


plough”  rather  than  the  pedants  of  the  Church  and 
Universities.  The  oft-quoted  tribute  of  Mr.  Froude 
is  not  exaggerated,  ‘The  peculiar  genius  which 
breathes  through  the  English  Bible,  the  mingled  ten¬ 
derness  and  majesty,  the  Saxon  simplicity,  the  gran¬ 
deur,  unequaled,  unapproached  in  the  attempted 
improvements  of  modern  scholars,  all  are  here,  and 
bear  the  impress  of  the  mind  of  one  man,  and  that 
man,  William  Tyndale.” 

Tyndale  himself  hardly  lived  to  seethe  first  fruits 
of  his  labor.  Henry  VIII  and  the  Continental  author¬ 
ities  had  pursued  him  with  unceasing  malignity. 
Vaughan,  envoy  of  the  king,  had  been  sent  with 
smooth  speech  to  urge  him  to  return,  but  failed. 
Treachery  was  then  resorted  to.  A  priest  by  the 
name  of  Phillips,  polite  in  manner,  but  a  villain  at 
heart,  secured  Tyndale’s  confidence,  decoyed  him 
away  from  home,  and  had  him  seized  and  thrown  into 
prison  where  for  months  he  suffered  agonies  of  cold 
and  sickness.  His  enemies  were  relentless.  The  end 
of  his  persecutions  for  righteousness’  sake  came  at 
Vilvorde  near  Brussels  on  October  6,  1536.  “Lord, 
open  the  King  of  England’s  eyes!”  he  prayed.  After 
this  last  prayer  for  his  enemy,  he  was  strangled  and 
his  body  burned  at  the  stake.  And  so  was  added  an¬ 
other  name  to  the  list  of  martyrs  of  faith  of  whom 
the  world  was  not  worthy. 


42 


Copter  YIII. 

From  Tgxukrte  to  tire  hi\ rtg  ^knurs  Aleman. 

153146U. 

Cover  dale. 

Finding  it  impossible  to  stop  the  flood  of  Tyndale 
Bibles,  Henry  YIII  finally  promised  that  if  the  peo¬ 
ple  would  leave  off  reading  “heretical”  Bibles,  he 
would  see  that  they  had  a  “more  correct”  version 
made  by  “learned  and  Catholic  persons”  under  super¬ 
vision  of  the  authorities  of  Church  and  State.  In  1534 
Henry  formally  severed  the  English  Church  from  the 
papacy,  and  from  that  time  there  was  less  motive  for 
suppressing  the  English  Bible ;  for  the  ecclesiasti- 
cism  that  formerly  objected  to  a  vernacular  Bible 
had  received  a  blow  which  paralyzed  its  power.  The 
promise,  however,  had  been  given  before  the  formal 
breach,  and  the  task  of  making  the  translation  had 
been  committed  to  the  bishops,  who  of  course  delayed 
it  as  long  as  possible.  At  last  Miles  Coverdale,  a 
friend  of  Tyndale  and  of  Archbishop  Cranmer,  was  di¬ 
rected  hy  Thomas  Cromwell,  Henry’s  Prime  Minister 
to  prepare  a  version.  He  did  so — using  as  a  basis  not 
the  Greek  and  Hebrew,  but,  as  his  preface  stated, 
the  “Douche  and  Latin”  with  the  help  of  “sundry 
interpreters”.  The  “Douche”  is  the  version  of  Zwin- 
gli  and  Juda  of  1524-1529 ;  the  Latin  is  the  Vulgate. 
Of  the  “sundry  interpreters”  it  is  plain  that  Tyn¬ 
dale  is  most  important.  The  New  Testament  is 
merely  a  revision  of  Tyndale.  Coverdale’s  transla¬ 
tion  appeared  in  1535.  Although  not  formally  sane- 


43 


0 

tioned  by  the  king  it  was  dedicated  to  him  and  circu¬ 
lated  freely.  It  has  the  distinction  of  being  the  first 
complete  Bible  printed  in  the  English  language. 

For  such  a  task  Coverdale  was  unfit  both  in  spir¬ 
it  and  scholarship.  His  eye  was  open  to  the  favor  of 
the  king  and  the  approval  of  Church  dignitaries.  Tyn- 
dale  had  used  the  terms  “congregation”,  “senior”, 
“love”;  but  Coverdale  put  back  the  more  ecclesias¬ 
tical  words  “church”,  “priest”,  and  “charity”.  Who¬ 
ever  has  not  an  eye  single  to  the  truth,  regardless  of 
party  or  sect,  is  unfit  to  handle  the  word  of  God  who 
is  no  respector  of  persons.  This  time-serving  spirit 
of  Coverdale  together  with  his  acknowledged  lack  of 
scholarship  made  his  work  unsatisfactory,  and  left 
the  way  open  for  other  efforts  at  Bible  revision. 

Matthews ’  Bible . 

In  1537  appeared  a  revision  called  Matthews’  Bi¬ 
ble.  It  was  put  out  by  John  Rogers,  who  because  of 
his  known  intimacy  with  Tyndale  and  other  reform¬ 
ers,  assumed  the  name  of  Matthews  in  order  not  to 
prevent  the  success  of  his  publication.  It  is  sub¬ 
stantially  Tyndale’s  version  of  the  Old  Testament 
from  Genesis  to  the  close  of  II  Chronicles  and  of  all 
the  New  Testament.  Besides  the  New  Testament 
Tyndale  had  only  published  the  Pentateuch  and  Jo¬ 
nah  ;  but  he  left  manuscript  translations  of  the  Old 
Testament,  as  far  as  II  Chronicles.  For  the  rest  of 
the  Old  Testament,  including  the  Apocrypha,  Rog¬ 
ers  revised  Ooverdale’s  version. 

It  is  funny  to  hear  Archbishop  Cranmer  say,1  a  year 
after  Tyndale’s  death,  that  he  liked  Matthews’  Bible 


1  Cranmer’ s  Remains  and  Letters  edited  by  Parker  Society 
(1846)  p.  344. 


44 


“better  than  any  translation  hitherto  made;”  that 
if  they  waited  till  the  bishops  should  set  forth  a  better 
translation  they  would  wait  till  “a  day  after  dooms¬ 
day”  ;  and  that  he  would  rather  see  it  licensed  by 
the  king  than  receive  1000  pounds.1  The  Archbishop 
seemed  to  be  unaware  that  it  was  really  Tyndale’s 
Bible.  How  the  brave  old  martyr,  if  he  knew  what 
was  going  on  in  England,  must  have  chuckled  with 
pleasure  at  this  approval  of  his  work  by  the  highest 
Church  dignitary  in  the  land ;  and  his  merriment 
must  have  exceeded  all  bounds  when  the  king  who 
had  hunted  him  and  his  Bibles  like  the  plague  actu¬ 
ally  sanctioned  Rogers5  publication.  The  obvious 
reason  for  all  this  is  that  a  king  and  an  archbishop 
were  ridiculously  deceived. 

The  Great  Bible . 

By  the  irony  of  Divine  Providence  a  greater  won¬ 
der  was  yet  to  come.  Could  Tyndale  have  believed 
it?  Three  years  from  the  day  in  October,  1536,  when 
he  prayed  that  the  Lord  would  open  the  king  of  Eng¬ 
land’s  eyes,  a  big  English  Bible  lay  upon  the  desk  of 
almost  every  church  in  the  realm.  It  was  really  Tyn¬ 
dale’s  version,  as  we  shall  see,  and  withal  so  preten¬ 
tious  in  size  that  it  seemed  calculated  to  emphasize 
the  greatness  of  his  triumph.  For  that  reason  it  was 
called  the  “Great  Bible”. 

It  all  came  about  in  this  way — and  the  story  is  so 
funny  that  it  almost  seems  that  the  Lord  loves  a  joke 
now  and  then.  Matthews’  Bible  was  favored  by 
Cranmer  and  licensed  by  the  king ;  but  many  of  the 
clergy  were  either  hostile  or  luke-warm  towards  it. 


1  Cranmer’ s  Letters,  p.  346. 


45 


Cromwell  strongly  favored  it,  but  yielded  to  the  de 
mand  for  a  more  elaborate  edition  free  from  the  con¬ 
troversial  notes  of  Rogers’  publication,  and  according¬ 
ly  employed  Coverdale — who  was  really  a  good  editor 
— to  revise  Matthews’  Bible.  Using  Munster’s  Latin 
version  as  a  basis  for  the  Old  Testament,  and  for  the 
New,  the  Latin  version  of  Erasmus,  Coverdale  soon 
had  his  work  ready  for  the  press.  Paris  offered  bet¬ 
ter  facilities  for  fine  printing  than  London,  and  so 
the  new  edition  was  launched  in  France.  But  when 
part  of  the  printing  had  been  done,  the  Inquisition 
alighted  upon  it  like  a  harpy  and  much  of  what  had 
been  done  was  destroyed.  But  Grafton,  the  printer, 
and  Coverdale,  managed  to  convey  types,  presses  and 
expert  French  printers  into  England,  where,  early  in 
1539,  the  first  edition  of  the  Great  Bible  appeared. 
Henry  VIII  had  formally  given  his  authorization, 
and  the  Great  Bible  continued  to  be  the  authorized 
version  until  1568.  The  clergy  were  nevertheless 
greatly  dissatisfied  with  the  translation  and  were 
about  to  proceed  to  revise  it  when  the  king  headed 
them  off. 

The  frontispiece  to  this  Bible  was  an  elaborate 
design  representing,  among  other  things,  the  king  on 
his  throne  with  a  copy  of  the  “Word  of  God”  in  each 
hand.  On  one  side  he  is  presenting  the  book  to  Cran- 
mer  and  another  bishop  while  a  group  of  priests  stand 
by.  On  the  other  side  he  is  giving  the  book  to  Crom¬ 
well  and  the  lay  peers.  Thus  the  king — not  the  ec¬ 
clesiastical  powers — is  represented  as  the  dispenser 
and  authorizer  of  the  word  of  God. 

Surely  things  had  been  changing  rapidly  in  Eng¬ 
land.  In  1521  the  pope  had  conferred  upon  Henry 


46 


the  title  of  “Defender  of  the  Faith”  because  of  a  de¬ 
fense  of  Romanism  Henry  had  written  against  Luther. 
But  thirteen  years  later  Parliament  had  {massed  the 
Act  of  Supremacy  making  the  king  the  head  of  the 
English  Church,  thus  wrenching  England  from  the 
hand  of  the  pope.  Henry  had  married  as  his  first 
wife  Catharine  of  Aragon,  widow  of  his  brother  Ar¬ 
thur.  Several  years  after  this  marriage  Henry  con¬ 
ceived  a  passion  for  his  wife’s  maid,  Anne  Boleyn. 
This  quickened  his  conscience  that  his  marriage  to 
his  sister-in-law  was  illegal  according  to  Scripture 
and  the  canons  of  the  Church.  Consequently  he  asked 
the  pope  for  a  divorce.  Fearing  to  offend  Henry  by 
refusing  the  divorce,  and  Emperor  Charles  of  Spain 
by  granting  it,  the  pope  delayed  and  vacillated.1 
Henry  maneuvered  industriously  for  several  years  to 
get  the  consent  of  the  Church  to  his  scandalous  con¬ 
duct,  but  failed.  While  negotiations  were  going  on, 
he  secretly  married  Anne  Boleyn  and  at  last  had  her 
proclaimed  queen.  The  pope,  as  he  ought,  exGom- 
municated  Henry,  who  in  passionate  defiance  ordered 
Parliament  to  pass  an  Act  of  Supremacy.  And  this 
is  how  it  came  about  that  in  the  frontispiece  of  the 
Great  Bible  the  king  is  the  dispenser  of  Holy  Writ. 

As  intimated  before,  this  notable  production  was 
Coverdale’s  revision  of  Matthews’  Bible — that  is,  of 
his  own  and  Tyndale’s.  Thus  by  a  curious  turn  of 
affairs,  Henry  was  posing  as  the  dispenser  of  sub¬ 
stantially  the  very  translation  he  had  prohibited,  and 
whose  author  he  had  hunted  to  death.  But  the  cli¬ 
max  of  this  curious  story  was  reached,  when,  on  the 


t  Ranke’s  Hist .  of  England — Yol.  I,  p.  147. 


47 


title-page  of  an  edition  in  1540,  appeared  the  formal 
sanction  of  Tunstall,  the  very  bishop  who  had  sol¬ 
emnly  burned  Tyndale’s  New  Testament  at  Paul’s 
Cross,  London.  At  last  the  martyr  of  Yilvorde  had 
triumphed.  Was  it  not,  indeed,  the  irony  of  Divine 
Providence  that  Tyndale’s  bitter  foes  were  scatter¬ 
ing  broadcast  under  their  own  names  almost  the  very 
same  Bible  which  they  had  tried  to  extirpate  and 
for  which  he  had  laid  down  his  life?  They  were  de¬ 
ceived  of  course.  Instead  of  opening  the  king  of 
England’s  eyes,  God  had  apparently  shut  them.  Thus 
strangely  does  God  sometimes  answer  our  prayers. 
Surely  the  Lord  maketh  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  him. 

The  Geneva  Bible . 

Henry  died  in  1547.  His  numerous  marriages 
had  so  complicated  the  matter  of  the  succession  that 
Parliament  seeing  trouble  ahead,  requested  him  to 
settle  the  matter  in  his  will.  He  did  so.  Edward,  son 
of  Jane  Seymour,  Henry’s  third  wife,  was  first  to  have 
the  throne.  If  he  should  die  without  heirs,  Mary, 
Henry’s  only  surviving  child  by  his  first  wife,  should 
follow.  If  Mary  should  leave  no  heirs,  Elizabeth, 
daughter  of  Anne  Boleyn,  should  wear  the  crown. 
Strangely  enough  all  three  became  monarchs  of  Eng¬ 
land. 

Edward  was  a  boy  nine  years  old  when  he  came 

to  the  throne.  During  the  six  years  of  his  reign  many 

important  changes  were  made  in  the  creed  of  the 

English  Church  which  separated  it  still  farther  from 

the  Church  of  Rome.  A  Book  of  Common  Praver 

« • 

was  issued  which,  with  some  changes,  is  still  used 
in  the  Church  of  England.  The  Psalms  still  used  in 
this  book  are  from  the  Great  Bible ;  and  many  of  us 


48 


are  still  praying,  “Forgive  us  our  trespasses,  as  we 
forgive  them  that  trespass  against  us”,  because  it 
was  thus  found  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  Great  Bible.  Other  innovations  were 
ordered ;  and  those  who  would  not  submit  to  them 
were  severely  punished. 

The  early  death  of  Edward  brought  Mary  to  the 
throne.  Being  a  stanch  Catholic,  she  endeavored  to 
force  England  back  to  the  Roman  faith  and  to  alle¬ 
giance  to  the  pope.  Then  it  was  the  turn  of  Protest¬ 
ants  to  be  persecuted.  Two  or  three  hundred  per¬ 
sons  were  put  to  death  for  their  refusal  to  accept  the 
Roman  worship.  John  Rogers,  editor  of  the  Matthews 
Bible,  was  the  first  victim.  He  was  burned  alive. 
Cranmer  suffered  the  same  fate.  Because  of  her 
fanatical  zeal  this  queen  is  known  as  “Bloody  Mary.” 
To  escape  her  furious  bigotry  many  earnest  people 
fled  over  the  sea.  Certain  prominent  scholars — Cov- 
erdale  among  them — took  refuge  at  Geneva,  where 
lived  Beza,  the  best  Biblical  scholar  of  the  time,  a 
collector  of  manuscripts  and  editor  of  a  Greek  New 
Testament,  and  Calvin,  the  great  theologian.  At 
this  city  these  exiles  made  a  translation  of  the  Scrip¬ 
tures  which  appeared  in  England  in  1560,  two  years 
after  the  ascension  of  Elizabeth,  and  is  called  the 
Geneva  Bible. 

The  Great  Bible  was  unsatisfactory  for  several 
reasons — one  being  its  bigness.  The  Geneva  Bible 
was  handier  and  cheaper,  and  better  adapted  to  popu¬ 
lar  use.  Furthermore,  new  manuscripts  had  been 
collected  since  Coverdale  had  produced  the  Great 
Bible,  and  this  made  revision  desirable  on  the  basis 
of  this  new  critical  material.  In  addition  to  the 


49 


Greek  text  published  by  Erasmus,  by  Cardinal 
Ximenes,  and  by  Robert  Stephens,  or  Stephan  us 
(1546-1551),  the  translators  of  Geneva  had  access  to 
manuscripts  collected  by  Beza  and  other  Genevan 
scholars.  Advance  also  had  been  made  in  Hebrew 
studies  since  Tyndale’s  time,  and  the  improvement 
of  the  Genevan  Old  Testament  over  earlier  versions 
is  very  marked. 

This  version  was  a  thorough  revision  of  the  Old 
Testament  as  found  in  the  Great  Bible  and  of  Tyn¬ 
dale’s  last  revision  of  the  New  Testament.  It  was 
the  first  English  Bible  printed  in  Roman  type  and 
without  the  Apocrypha.  It  recognized  not  only  the 
chapter  divisions  of  early  translations — originally  the 
the  work  of  Stephen  Langton,1  a  professor  in  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Baris,  afterward  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
— but  also  the  unfortunate  verse  system  used  by  Ste¬ 
phens  in  his  Greek  Testament  of  1551,  a  device  which 
has  marred  every  later  version  and  the  only  justifi¬ 
cation  for  which  is  easy  reference.  By  omitting  Paul’s 
name  in  the  superscription  to  the  Epistle  to  the  He¬ 
brews,  it  recognized  the  ancient  doubt  of  his  author¬ 
ship.  The  latest  revisers  approve  the  omission.  It 
was  the  first  version  to  use  different  type  to  denote 
words  not  found  in  the  original.  The  Genevan  Bible, 
therefore,  has  a  considerable  relation  to  later  versions. 

While  the  Great  Bible  was  still  generally  used 
in  the  churches  for  several  years  after  1560,  the  Ge¬ 
nevan  version  became  the  family  Bible  of  England. 
One  fact,  however,  prevented  its  universal  use.  All 
recognized  its  merits;  but  it  contained  marginal 


1  Our  Bible  and  the  Ancient  Mss.,  p.  186. 


50 


notes  which  were  Oalvinistic  in  theology  and  in 
views  of  church  and  civil  government— a  fact  which 
made  it  very  popular  among  Scotch  Presbyterians 
and  English  Puritans.  But  it  made  it  the  Bible  of 
a  party,  as  all  notes  tend  to  do.  It  is  not  strange 
that  the  Anglican  party  viewed  it  with  disfavor  when 
they  found  such  comments  as  this  on  Rev.  9 :3,  where 
H  is  explained  that  the  “locusts  that  came  out  of  the 
bottomless  pit”  are  “false  teachers,  heretics,  and 
worldly  subtil  prelates,  with  Monks,  Friars,  Cardi¬ 
nals,  Patriarch,  Archbishops,  Bishops,  Doctors,  Bach¬ 
elors  and  Masters  of  Artes,  which  forsake  Christ  to 
maintain  false  doctrine.”  These  notes  are  historic¬ 
ally  important,  because  to  them  we  are  indebted  for 
the  King  James  or  Authorized  version.  But  in  spite 
of  these  notes  so  objectionable  to  High  Churchmen, 
the  Geneva  version  was  the  popular  Bible  of  England 
for  about  sixty  years,  and  for  a  long  time  disputed 
supremacy  with  the  Authorized  Version  of  1611. 

The  Bishops'  Bible . 

Little  need  be  said  about  the  Bishops’  Bible 
which  came  out  in  1568  under  the  auspices  of  Arch¬ 
bishop  Parker.  It  received  its  name  from  being  the 
work  of  nine  bishops  of  the  Church  of  England  assist¬ 
ed  by  a  few  other  clergymen.  It  was  put  out  as  an 
antidote  to  the  Geneva  Bible.  Parker  being  desirous 
of  uniformity  in  religious  matters,  and  very  jealous 
for  the  prestige  of  the  episcopacy,  deemed  it  proper 
for  the  people  to  have  a  Bible  translated  under  di¬ 
rection  of  the  Church  authorities.  Accordingly  in 
his  choice  of  translators  he  was  less  careful  about 
their  scholarship  than  their  position  in  the  Church. 

The  Bishops’  Bible  was  a  work  of  very  unequal 


merit,  some  parts  being  meritorious,  others  very  in¬ 
ferior.  This  was  due  to  the  fact  that  the  work  was 
parceled  out  among  the  translators,  who  worked  sep¬ 
arately,  with  no  general  supervision  except  that  of 
Parker  himself.1  Hence  in  udivers  portions55  there 
were  “divers  manners55  of  work.  Both  the  Great 
Bible  and  the  Genevan  exerted  great  influence, 
though  unequally  in  different  parts.  A  fondness  for 
pompous  expressions  is  noticeable  in  places.  In  1572 
the  New  Testament  was  revised  and  considerably  im¬ 
proved. 

Douay  Bible . 

In  order  of  time  the  next  version  was  the  Rheims- 
Douay  Bible  of  the  Roman  Catholics,  the  history  of 
which  has  already  given  and  to  which  the  reader 
should  now  refer.  As  in  most  cases  of  vernacular 
translations  by  Romanists,  this  version  was  not  the 
result  of  any  recognized  need  of  an  English  Bible, 
but  of  the  popular  demand  created  by  Protestant 
principles.  If  the  people  would  have  English  ver¬ 
sions,  it  was  desirable,  according  to  Romanists,  that 
they  have  a  Bible  translated  from  official  Roman 
Catholic  sources,  and  annotated  agreeably  to  Roman 
Catholic  doctrine  and  practice — not  by  Puritans  and 
heretical  English  bishops.  Accordingly,  instead  of 
using  the  Greek  and  Hebrew,  which  these  translators 
maintained  had  been  corrupted  by  heretics,  they 
made  a  very  literal,  and  consequently  a  very  awk¬ 
ward,  translation  of  the  Latin  Yulgate,  and  annotated 
it  with  fiercely  Catholic  notes. 


1  Correspondence  of  Archbishop  Parker  (Parker  Society)  p. 


52 


This  version  at  first  had  a  very  small  circulation 
and  hardly  attracted  notice.  Had  not  a  Protestant^ 
Fulke,  printed  the  Rheims  and  Bishops’  New  Testa 
ment  side  by  side  in  a  work  calculated  to  cast  dis¬ 
credit  on  the  former,  the  translators  of  1611  would 
hardly  have  recognized  its  existence.  As  it  was, 
this  Roman  Catholic  version  exerted  great  influence 
on  the  King  James  Version. 

At  last  England  was  well  supplied  with  versions. 
Occasionallv  an  old  Great  Bible  could  be  seen  in  the 
desk  of  an  out-of-the-way  church ;  the  common  peo¬ 
ple  continued  to  use  the  handy  Genevan  in  their  pri¬ 
vate  and  family  devotions,  and  in  gatherings  of  Dis¬ 
senters;  and  the  High  Church  sympathizers  had 
their  official  Bishops’  Bible.  Surely  everybody  ought 
to  have  been  satisfied.  But  there  were  too  many 
versions — the  very  reason  why  another  should  come. 
And  it  did  come — the  noblest  of  all — the  King  James 
or  Authorized  Version. 


53 


I 


Chapter  IX. 

Tht  ming  Ifantes  ur  ^utharizrd  HJfersiou. 

u  Lord,  open  the  King  of  England’s  eyes.”  So 
prayed  Tyndale  in  1536.  Seventy  years  later  an 
English  king  is  himself  directing  a  translation  of  the 
Bible  for  universal  use  in  his  realm.  This  is  how  it- 
happened. 

On  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  James  VI  of  Scotland 
came  to  the  English  throne  as  James  I.  The  strife 
between  High  Church  Episcopalians  and  Puritans, 
which  had  lulled  in  the  last  years  of  Elizabeth,  re¬ 
vived  at  the  accession  of  a  new  monarch.  Each  party 
tried  to  secure  his  favor.  James  had  been  educated 
among  the  Presbyterians  and  had  often  expressed 
himself  as  an  admirer  of  the  Scotch  kirk ;  and  this 
encouraged  the  hopes  of  the  Puritans.  But  James’s 
religious  scruples  were  nothing  as  compared  with  his 
notions  of  kingly  prerogative.  It  did  not  take  long 
for  the  Puritans  to  observe  that  the  High  Church 
party  had  the  king’s  best  ear.  “  No  bishop,  no  king,” 
said  James  at  the  Hampton  Court  Conference1 — an 
ejaculation  which  explains  his  change  of  heart  from 
Presbyterianism ;  for  he  saw  in  the  ecclesiasticism 
of  the  High  Church  party  a  bulwark  to  his  kingly 
assumptions. 

To  secure  harmony,  or  at  least  uniformity  in  re¬ 
ligious  matters,  James  in  1604  called  a  conference  at 
Hampton  Court.  There  was  little  conference,  for 
the  king  brow-beat  and  insulted  the  Puritans,  and 


taker’s  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  England ,  pp.  444-446. 


54 


favored  the  High  Church  representatives  in  all  the 
proceedings — except  in  one  important  matter.  It 
had  been  difficult  for  the  Puritans  to  get  a  word  in 
edgewise ;  but  one  of  their  suggestions  stuck  fast  in 
the  mind  of  the  king.  Dr.  Reynolds,  a  prominent 
Puritan,  President  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Oxford, 
proposed  a  new  translation  of  the  Scriptures.  The 
king  favored  the  proposal— not  because  he  liked  the 
Puritans,  mind  you,  but  because  he  did  not  like  the 
political  sentiments  of  the  Geneva  notes.  He  was  a 
stickler  for  the  Divine  Right  of  kings ;  and  he  did 
not  relish  his  people  having  on  their  Bible  margins 
such  comments  as  this  on  Exodus  1:17-19:  “Their 
disobedience  to  the  king  was  lawful,  though  their  dis¬ 
sembling  was  evil.”  This  would  never  do.  He  char¬ 
acterized  the  notes  of  the  popular  version  as  “par¬ 
tial,  untrue,  seditious,  and  savoring  too  much  of  dan¬ 
gerous  and  traitorous  conceits.”  In  this  suggestion 
he  saw  also  a  fine  occasion  to  display  his  prerogative ; 
while  his  vanity  of  learning  suggested  that  to  be  the 
patron  of  an  English  Bible  for  all  the  people  would 
enhance  the  glory  of  his  reign.  In  this  conceit  he 
was  right ;  it  was  the  best  thing  he  ever  did ;  for  the 
King  James  Version  has  been  the  Bible  of  all  Eng¬ 
lish  Protestants  for  nearly  three  hundred  years. 

The  king  had  nothing  to  do  directly  with  trans¬ 
lating;  yet  the  work  is  justly  called  by  his  name, 
for  he  set  the  machinery  in  motion,  supervising  the 
appointment  of  revisers  and  laying  down  rules  for 
their  guidance.  The  board  of  revisers  consisted  of 
about  forty-seven  men  chosen  from  both  High  Church 
an  I  Puritan  divines,  and  also  from  the  Greek  and 
Hebrew  professors  in  the  universities  not  notoriously 


55 


connected  with  either  party.  The  eleventh  rule  for 
the  guidance  of  translators  provided  also  that  uwhen 
any  place  of  special  obscurity  is  doubted  of”  letters 
were  to  be  “directed  by  authority,  to  send  to  any 
learned  in  the  land  for  his  judgment  in  such  a  place.” 
In  this  way  the  combined  scholarship  of  England  was 
invited  to  produce  this  version. 

The  committee’s  method  of  work  shows  the  thor¬ 
oughness  with  which  the  translation  was  made.  The 
whole  board  of  revisers  was  divided  into  six  compan¬ 
ies,  two  of  them  stationed  at  Oxford,  two  at  Cam¬ 
bridge,  and  two  at  Westminster.  To  each  of  these 
sub-committees  was  assigned  a  certain  portion  of  the 
Bible  to  translate.  Each  member  first  made  an  inde¬ 
pendent  revision  of  the  portion  assigned  to  his  com¬ 
pany.  Then  all  the  members  of  a  company  met,  and 
by  consultation  agreed  on  a  copy5  which  was  sent  to 
all  the  other  companies  for  examination  and  criti¬ 
cism.  If  these  criticisms  were  approved  by  the  first 
company  the  revised  text  passed  as  final  so  far  as 
the  board  was  concerned  ;  if  not  approved,  the  points 
of  disagreement  were  settled  by  the  final  revisers. 
“Neither  did  we  disdain,”  says  Dr.  Miles  Smith  in 
his  preface,  “to  revise  that  which  we  had  done  and 
to  bring  back  to  the  anvil  that  which  we  had  ham¬ 
mered,  fearing  no  reproach  for  slowness,  nor  covet¬ 
ing  praise  for  expedition.”  When  the  whole  Bible 
was  thus  revised,  three  copies  were  made — one  at 
each  place — and  delivered  to  a  committee  of  twelve 
chosen  from  the  whole  board.1  After  their  examina¬ 
tion  it  was  passed  on  to  Bilson,  Bishop  of  Winches- 

1  Or,  Six.  See  Preface  to  R.  V.  of  1881.  Also,  Mrs.  Conant’s 
Pop.  Hist,  of  Eng.  Bible  Translation. 


56 


ter,  and  Dr.  Miles  Smith — both  Anglicans — who 
wrote  little  introductions  to  each  book,  and  the  latter 
of  whom  wrote  the  preface  to  the  whole  work.  Last 
of  all,  the  Bishop  of  London  gave  it  a  touch  here  and 
there.  Then  in  1611  it  was  published  with  a  fulsome 
dedication  to  the  king,  having  been  done,  as  the  title 
page  declares,  “by  his  majesty’s  special  command¬ 
ment.”  Thus  was  made  the  Authorized  or  King 
James  Version,  so  long  the  beloved  text  of  English 
Protestantism. 

Some  of  the  rules  laid  down  for  the  guidance  of 
the  committee  throw  light  on  the  relation  this  ver¬ 
sion  bears  to  its  predecessors.  The  first  rule  directed 
that  the  ordinary  Bible  read  in  the  church,  commonly 
called  the  Bishops’  Bible,  was  to  be  followed  as  far 
as  consistent  with  the  original.  But  another  rule 
directed  that  when  they  agreed  better  with  the  text 
than  the  Bishops’  Bible  did,  Tyndale’s,  Matthews’, 
Coverdale’s,  Whitchurch’s,1  and  the  Genevan  might 
be  used.  Tyndale,  therefore,  was  still  the  ground¬ 
work  of  the  English  Bible.  The  Bishops’  and  Gene¬ 
van  exerted  the  most  powerful  influence,  but  the 
influence  of  the  Rheims  New  Testament  was  consid¬ 
erable.2  Other  rules  forbade  the  use  of  marginal 
notes  except  cross-references  and  explanations  of 
Greek  and  Hebrew  words — a  wise  provision  which 
had  much  to  do  with  making  this  the  common  ver¬ 
sion  of  English  Protestants  everywhere. 

Until  the  American  Revised  Version  of  1901 
appeared,  no  better  translation  has  ever  been  made. 

1  That  is,  the  Great  Bible. 

2  The  Part  of  Rheims  in  the  Making  of  the  English  Bible.  Also 
preface  to  R.  V.  1881. 


57 


In  simple  dignity,  and  melody,  its  English  is  still 
without  rival.  Its  literary  merits  can  hardly  be 
exaggerated.  Dr.  Kenyon  says:  “In  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment,  in  particular,  it  is  the  simple  truth  that  the 
English  version  is  a  far  greater  literary  work  than 
the  original  Greek.”1  Not  slavishly  tied  to  the 
letter  of  the  original,  it  is  nevertheless  true  to  its 
spirit;  for  it  was  not  mere  verbal  accuracy  the  trans¬ 
lators  were  careful  of,  but  the  sense  and  the  spirit. 
Fearing  that  its  literary  merits  would  be  sacrificed, 
the  Seventh  Earl  of  Shaftsbury  in  opposing  revision 
speaks  of  its  “racy  old  language,  which  is  music  to 
everybody’s  ears,  and  which,  like  Handel’s  music, 
carries  divine  truth  and  comfort  to  the  soul.”  No 
higher  tribute  has  been  given  to  the  King  James 
Version  than  this  of  Faber,  a  convert  to  Romanism: 
u  Who  will  say  that  the  uncommon  beauty  and  mar¬ 
velous  English  of  the  Protestant  Bible  is  not  one  of 
the  great  strongholds  of  heresy  in  this  country?  It 
lives  on  the  ear  like  a  music  that  can  never  be  for¬ 
gotten,  like  the  sound  of  church  bells,  which  the  con¬ 
vert  scarcely  knows  how  he  can  forego.  Its  felicities 
seem  often  to  be  almost  things  rather  than  words. . . . 
The  memory  of  dead  passes  into  it.  The  potent  tra¬ 
ditions  of  childhood  are  stereotyped  in  its  verses.  It 
is  the  representative  of  a  man’s  best  moments ;  all 
that  there  has  been  about  him  of  soft,  and  gentle, 
and  pure,  and  penitent,  and  good,  speaks  to  him  for¬ 
ever  out  of  his  English  Bible.  It  is  his  sacred  thing, 
which  doubt  never  dimmed  and  controversy  never 
soiled;  and  in  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land 
there  is  not  a  Protestant  with  one  spark  of  religious- 


1  Our  Bible  and  the  Ancient  i/ss.,  p.  133. 


58 


ness  about  him  whose  spiritual  biography  is  not  in  his 
Saxon  Bible.1 


1  See  Froude’s  tribute  p.  41. 


59 


Chapter  X. 

Tbs  Unused  Herstim. 
ge*.  1.  gitiglo-gimencan  of  1881-1885. 

The  King  James  Version  was  completed  in  1611. 
On  its  merits  alone,  in  a  few  years  it  displaced  all 
other  Protestant  versions,  and  at  last  all  English 
Protestants  were  reading  the  same  Bible.  Scholars 
continued  to  point  out  its  defects,  and  to  discuss  re¬ 
vision  ;  but  practically  nothing  was  done  for  more 
than  two  centuries  and  a  half.  Meanwhile  people 
learned  to  love  the  '‘Common  Version”  so  ardently 
that  the  very  suggestion  of  a  new  version  seemed  to 
verge  on  sacrilege. 

Nevertheless  in  1881  appeared  the  Revised  Ver¬ 
sion  of  the  New  Testament;  and  in  1885,  the  whole 
Bible,  the  title  page  of  which  proclaimed  that  it  was 
uthe  version  set  forth  in  1611,  compared  with  the  most 
ancient  authorities  and  revised.”  At  the  Southern 
Convocation  of  the  Church  of  England  held  at  Can¬ 
terbury  in  1870,  a  report  was  adopted  that  the  conven¬ 
tion  should  nominate  a  body  of  its  own  members  to 
undertake  the  work  of  revising  the  Bible,  who  should 
be  at  liberty  to  invite  the  cooperation  of  any  emi¬ 
nent  for  scholarship  to  whatever  nation  or  religious 
body  they  might  belong.1 

Accordingly  two  companies  were  constituted — 
one  of  twenty-seven  members  for  the  Old  Testament, 
and  one  of  twenty-five  for  the  New.  Two  American 
companies  of  fourteen  and  thirteen  members  respect- 


i  Preface  to  R.  V.  of  1881. 


60 


ively  cooperated  with  those  in  England  and  under 
the  same  rules.  These  rules  specified,  among  other 
things,  that  the  fewest  possible  changes  were  to  be 
made  consistently  with  fidelity  to  the  original ;  that 
the  language  of  the  King  James  Version  (or  earlier 
versions)  should  be  closely  followed ;  and  that  each 
company  should  go  twice  over  its  work  and  at  the 
second  revision  no  change  should  stand  unless  ap¬ 
proved  by  a  two-thirds  majority  of  those  present. 
Care  was  taken  to  exclude  theological  or  ecclesiasti¬ 
cal  bias  in  the  translation;  for  almost  every  impor¬ 
tant  Protestant  Church  in  England  and  America  had 
representatives  in  the  committees.  The  eminent  Ro¬ 
man  Catholic  scholar,  Cardinal  Newman,  was  invited 
to  cooperate,  but  he  refused.  Presbyterian,  Method¬ 
ist,  Baptist,  and  Anglican  worked  side  by  side.  There 
could  be  no  sectarianism  in  the  result.  The  English 
Committees,  however,  were  less  impartial  in  their 
denominational  make-up  than  the  American,  for  more 
than  two-thirds  of  the  former  belonged  to  the  Church 
of  England. 

The  reader  may  ask,  Why,  if  the  King  James 
Version  was  so  nobly  done,  was  a  revised  Bible  desi¬ 
rable?  For  severable  weighty  reasons : 

(1) .  Since  1611  the  four  oldest  and  most  import¬ 
ant  Greek  manuscripts  have  become  accessible,  copies 
of  very  ancient  translations  have  been  found,  and 
writings  of  early  Christian  fathers  have  been  col¬ 
lected  and  used  as  never  before.1 

(2) .  Modern  scholars  know  how  to  use  these 
sources  as  seventeenth  century  men  did  not.  The 


1  Preface  to  R.  V.  of  1881. 


61 


science  of  textual  criticism  was  merely  in  its  infancy 

in  1611. 

(3) .  Greek  and  Hebrew  are  much  better  under¬ 
stood  now.  Because  of  imperfect  knowledge  of  these 
languages  the  King  James  Version  contains  many 
obscure  and  incorrect  renderings. 

(4) .  The  English  language  has  changed,  many 
words  used  three  hundred  years  ago  being  obsolete. 

There  are  other  less  important  reasons,  but  these 
alone  justify  revision. 

Revision  of  the  Old  Testament  was  a  much  easier 
task  than  that  of  the  New,  for  the  reason  that  He¬ 
brew  manuscripts  are  so  nearly  alike  that  little  re¬ 
construction  of  the  text  is  required.  But  because 
of  the  advance  of  the  knowledge  of  Hebrew  since 
1611,  the  revisers  have  given  us  a  much  clearer  trans¬ 
lation.  Many  passages,  particularly  in  Job1  and  the 
Prophets,  that  are  unintelligible  in  the  old  versions 
are  full  of  meaning  in  the  new. 

But  with  the  New  Testament  the  case  was  dif¬ 
ferent.  Older  manuscripts  and  versions  than  the 
translators  of  the  King  James  version  ever  dreamed 
of  securing  were  in  the  hands  of  the  New  Testament 
revision  committees.  First,  there  is  the  Codex  Sina- 
iticus,  discovered  in  the  Convent  of  St.  Catharine  on 
Mt.  Sinai  in  1859  by  Tischendorf,  a  German  scholar. 
Its  discovery  is  one  of  the  romances  of  scholarship. 
Tischendorf,  in  searching  for  Bible  manuscripts,  vis¬ 
ited  every  old  library  in  the  Orient  he  could  get  into. 
At  the  convent  on  Sinai  he  made  the  great  discovery 
of  his  life.  One  day  he  noticed  some  old  parchments 
in  the  waste  basket  in  the  library.  He  was  told  that 


1  See  App. 


62 


these  parchments  were  to  be  used  for  making  fires 
and  that  two  such  basketfuls  had  already  been 
burned.  Examining  the  pile  he  found  several  leaves 
of  the  Septuagint  written  in  a  style  that  showed  that 
the  manuscript  was  very  old — the  oldest  he  had  ever 
seen.  His  pleasure  was  so  great  that  the  monks 
became  suspicious  that  the  basket  contained  some 
very  valuable  fuel,  and  Tischendorf  was  permitted 
to  carry  away  only  forty-three  sheets.  He  returned 
to  Germany  and  startled  the  world  with  his  announce¬ 
ment.  But  fearing  that  some  other  scholar  might 
find  his  pearl  of  great  price,  he  concealed  the  place 
of  his  discovery.  Tischendorf  then  made  efforts  to 
secure  the  remainder  of  the  work,  but  failed.  Fi¬ 
nally,  having  secured  the  interest  of  the  Czar,  in 
1859  he  went  again  to  Sinai.  He  was  about  to  depart 
again  without  success,  when  the  steward  invited  him 
to  his  cell,  and  showed  him  the  treasure  he  had 
sought — a  large  part  of  the  Old  Testament  in  Greek 
and  all  of  the  New.  Imagine  the  joy  of  the  patient 
Tischendorf !  For  there  lay  before  him  one  of  the 
oldest,  if  not  the  oldest,  Bible  manuscript  known  to 
men.  Fifteen  hundred  years  it  had  survived  to  tell 
as  best  it  could  what  the  Apostles  had  written  only 
about  two  hundred  and  seventy-five  years  before. 
By  means  well  known  to  scholars,  Tischendorf  knew 
it  was  written  about  350  A.  D.  At  last  the  Czar 
bought  it  and  put  it  in  the  library  of  St.  Petersburg. 
Photographs  have  been  made  of  every  page,  and  fac¬ 
similes  are  in  many  of  the  great  libraries. 

Even  more  important  than  this  is  the  Vatican 
Codex  kept  in  the  Vatican  library  at  Rome.  For 
some  reason,  until  a  few  years  ago  scholars  were 


63 


hardly  permitted  to  see  it.  Dr.  Tregelles,  one  of  the 
late  revisers,  was  permitted  to  see  it,  but  his  pockets 
were  first  searched  by  the  attendants  for  pencil  or 
paper  lest  he  should  do  any  copying.  If  he  looked 
too  long  at  any  passage  the  book  was  snatched  away 
from  him !  It  was  thus  inaccessible  until  1868  when 
Pius  IX  permitted  its  publication.1  Finally  Leo 
XIII  in  1889  permitted  photographic  fac-similes  to 
be  made  for  general  distribution.  The  manuscript 
contains  nearly  all  of  the  Greek  Old  Testament,  and 
all  of  the  New  to  Eteb.  9  :14.  It  is  probably  a  little 
older  than  the  Sinaitic  Codex. 

The  third  most  ancient  manuscript,  and  a  very 
important  one,  is  in  the  keeping  of  Protestantism  at 
the  British  Museum.  It  formerly  belonged  to  Cyril 
Lucas,  Patriarch  of  Alexandria,  afterward  of  Con¬ 
stantinople,  who  in  1627,  presented  to  Charles  I.  of 
England.  It  belongs  probably  to  the  first  part  of  the 
fifth  century. 

Codex  Ephraemi,  now  in  the  National  Library  of 
Paris,  was  unknown  to  English  scholars  of  1611.  Its 
date  is  about  450.  Scrivener,  one  of  the  late  revisers, 
describes  it  as  a  “most  valuable  palimpsest  containing 
portions  of  the  Septuagint  version  of  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment  on  64  leaves,  and  fragments  of  every  part  of 
the  New  on  143  leaves.  A  palimpsest  is  a  manu¬ 
script  which  has  been  used  twice,  the  first  copy  hav¬ 
ing  been  erased  to  receive  other  writing.  About  the 
twelfth  century  some  stupid  fellow  tried  to  rub  out 
the  original  Bible  text,  and  wrote  over  it  a  work  of 
St.  Ephraem.  The  original  text  was  for  the  most 


1  See  App. 


64 


part  illegible  until  in  1834  the  manuscript  was  sub¬ 
jected  to  a  chemical  process  which  brought  out  a  large 
part  of  the  erased  writing. 

Besides  these  four  oldest  manuscripts,1  and  many 
others  of  which  space  forbids  mention,  some  very  an¬ 
cient  translations  have  become  accessible  since  1611. 
The  Peshitto,* 3  although  published  before  that  date, 
was  not  used  by  the  translators  of  the  King  James 
Version,  except  in  a  Latin  translation.  Another  im¬ 
portant  version  for  critical  purposes  is  that  of  Ulfilas, 
Bishop  among  the  Goths,  who  sometime  before  360 
translated  part  of  the  Old  and  all  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  from  Greek  into  Gothic.  The  principal  manu¬ 
script  of  this  version  is  the  Codex  Argenteus,  or  Sil¬ 
ver  Codex,  containing  fragments  of  the  four  gospels, 
made  in  Italy  about  500  A.  D .  The  first  printed 
copy  of  this  version  mas  not  made  until  1665. 3  Other 
important  versions  mentioned  in  Chapter  III  have 
in  recent  years  added  their  testimony  in  the  deter¬ 
mination  of  the  original  text. 

Scholars  of  our  time  also  know  the  great  value  of 
Scripture  references  found  in  the  writings  of  the 
Fathers  of  the  first  four  or  five  centuries.  This  can 
be  shown  by  a  single  text,  I  John  5  :7-8. —  “For  there 
are  three  that  bear  record  [in  heaven,  the  Father,  the 
Word,  and  the  Holy  Ghost:  and  these  three  are  one. 
And  there  are  three  that  bear  witness  in  earth,]  the 
spirit,  and  the  water,  and  the  blood :  and  these  three 
agree  in  one”.  The  Revised  Versions  omit  the  words 


1  See  p.  9  for  value  of  old  mss. 

3  See  p.  12. 

*  See  Gothic ,  Ang.-Sax .,  Wy  cliff e  &  Tyndale  Gospels — Bosworth. 


65 


in  brackets.  Certainly  words  like  these,  that  come 
nearer  being  a  formal  statement  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity  than  any  others  in  the  New  Testament- 
should  not  be  lightly  cast  out. 

But  the  evidence  against  the  passage  is  over¬ 
whelming  : 

(1)  No  Greek  manuscript  made  before  the  fif¬ 
teenth  century  contains  it. 

(2)  The  Peshitto,  Bohairic,  Sahidic,  Armenian 
and  Ethiopian  versions  do  not  contain  it;  neither 
does  the  Codex  Amiatinus  of  the  Vulgate. 

(3)  In  all  the  earnest  discussions  about  the 
Trinity  from  the  third  to  the  fifth  centuries  no  Greek 
Father  alludes  to  it,  and  few  of  the  important  Latin 
Fathers.  Advocates  of  the  doctrine  would  certainly 
have  loaded  their  theological  guns  with  this  text  if 
it  had  existed. 

This  example  shows  the  value  both  of  ancient 
versions,  and  of  the  writings  of  the  early  Christians 
in  determining  what  the  Apostles  wrote. 

It  is  by  this  time  evident  what  a  rich  mine  of 
ancient  sources  the  latest  revisers  had — treasures 
undreamed  of  by  all  former  translators,  Protestants 
and  Roman  Catholics  alike.  Every  unprejudiced 
reader  must  see  that  the  Revised  Version  of  3881-85 
is  derived  from  the  best  original  sources  known  to 
exist;  and  that  in  this  respect  neither  the  Douav  nor 
the  King  James  Version  is  to  be  compared  to  it. 

Sec.  2.  American  S^nbarb  (gbition  of  1901. 

In  spite  of  the  care  and  scholarship  bestowed 
upon  the  Revised  Version  of  1881-85,  it  was  satis¬ 
factory  neither  to  scholars,  who  saw  evidences  on  the 


66 


^ne  hand  of  excessive  conservatism  in  adhering  to 
antiquated  terms,  and  on  the  other  of  a  tendency  to 
make  unnecessary  changes ;  nor  to  the  common  peo¬ 
ple  to  whom  the  new  text  sounded  strange  and  dis¬ 
cordant.  So  closely  had  the  experience  of  Christians 
twined  about  the  beloved  words  of  the  old  version 
that  it  was  a  shock  to  find  many  of  these  familiar 
texts  incorrect.  This  latter  result  was  of  course  in¬ 
evitable  ;  but  the  American  Revision  Committee 
were  themselves  dissatisfied.  Reference  to  the  Ap¬ 
pendix  in  the  British  Revised  Aversion  will  show 
that  a  very  large  number  of  American  suggestions 
were  not  adopted — suggestions,  too,  which  in  many 
cases  even  a  novice  can  see  were  preferable.  But 
the  Americans  had  agreed  not  to  sanction,  for  a  pe¬ 
riod  of  fourteen  years,  any  edition  except  those  issued 
by  the  University  Presses  of  England.  They  were 
true  to  their  promise.  But  during  that  time  it  be¬ 
came  more  and  more  evident  to  scholars  generally 
that  the  British  Revision  did  not  meet  the  require¬ 
ment  so  well  as  the  work  of  the  Americans.  Mean¬ 
while  the  American  committees,  expecting  that  “an 
American  recension  of  the  English  revision  might 
eventually  be  called  for,”  continued  their  organiza¬ 
tion  and  pursued  the  work  of  revising  their  own  sug¬ 
gestions  formerly  made  to  the  British  committees.1 
The  result  was  “The  Holy  Bible  containing  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments,  translated  out  of  the  original 
tongues,  being  the  version  set  forth  A.  D.  1611  com¬ 
pared  with  the  most  ancient  authorities  and  revised 
A.  D.  1881-1885,  newly  edited  by  the  American  Re- 

1  The  entire  Preface  to  the  American  edition  of  1901  should  be 


read. 


67 


vision  Committee  A.  D.  1901,  Standard  Edition55, 
published  by  Thomas  Nelson  and  Sons,  New  York — a 
work  declared  by  most  American  and  many  British 
scholars  the  queen  of  English  versions  of  the  Holy 
Bible.  In  America  it  is  rapidly  displacing  even  the 
King  James  version,  and  bids  fair  to  become  the  com¬ 
mon  version  of  English  Protestants.  Comparative 
study  will  show  that  it  is  the  best  of  all  versions  in 
scholarship,  in  fidelity  to  the  original,  and  in  the  pu¬ 
rity  and  intelligibility  of  its  English. 

In  the  foregoing  pages  w^e  have  said  much  about 
variations  of  manuscripts  and  versions.  But  in  spite 
of  some  variations  in  all  these  reports  of  God5s  wrord, 
it  is  still  wonderfully  true  that  in  all  versions  the 
word  of  God  is  substantially  the  same,1  and  that  all 
Christians — Catholics  and  Protestants  alike — have 
practically  the  same  sacred  writings  which  are  able 
to  make  us  wise  unto  salvation  through  faith  which 
is  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  which  are  profitable  for  teach¬ 
ing,  for  reproof,  for  correction,  for  instruction  in 
righteousness.2 


1  See  Appendix. 

2  2  Tim.  3:15-16. 


68 


Jkppmritx. 

Note  p.  7.  Ancient  Greek  is  related  to  modern  Greek  much 
as  the  English  of  Chaucer  is  to  modern  English.  With  some  diffi. 
culty  St.  Paul  could  read  a  modern  Greek  newspaper. 

Note  p.  18.  Douay  Version,  John  Murphy  Company,  Balti¬ 
more  and  New  York,  Printers  to  the  Holy  See,  1899,  with  a  note 
of  approbation  by  Cardinal  Gibbons. 

Note  1,  p.  19.  “Thus,”  says  Reuss  in  his  History  of  the 
Canon,  “the  council  of  Trent  did  not  hesitate  to  place  itself  in 
contradiction  with  the  most  of  the  orthodox  Greek  Fathers  and  a 
good  number  of  the  most  illustrious  and  esteemed  Latin  Fathers.” 
p.  277. 

Note  2,  p.  19.  In  his  book,  The  Faith  of  Our  Fathers ,  Cardi¬ 
nal  Gibbons  says,  “The  Catholic  Church,  in  the  plentitude  of  her 
authority,  in  the  third  Council  of  Carthage  (A.  D.  397),  separated 
the  chaff  from  the  wheat,  and  declared  what  Books  were  canon¬ 
ical  and  what  were  apocryphal.” — p.  104.  But  that  the  Church 
never  believed  the  canon  to  be  fixed  until  the  Council  of  Trent 
see  the  discussion  in  Reuss’  History  of  the  Canon  of  Holy  Scripture. 
Furthermore,  the  Council  of  Carthage  included  in  its  action 
only  the  apocryphal  books  of  Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus,  Tobit, 
Judith,  and  I  and  II  Maccabees.  When  Protestants  are  charged 
with  tampering  with  the  books  of  the  Bible,  it  should  be  remem¬ 
bered  that  there  wras  no  definitely  settled  canon  in  the  Roman 
Church  until  the  Council  of  Trent;  and  if  Catholics  had  a  right  to 
adopt  doubtful  books,  Protestants  had  equal  right  to  refuse  to 
adopt  them. 

Note  3,  p.  19.  The  reader  should  recall  what  was  said  in  the 
beginning  about  the  importance  of  keeping  in  mind  that  the  Bible 
is  a  Book  of  books.  See  p.  6. 

Note  p.  20.  Origen  himself,  however,  sometimes  quotes  from 
Apocryphal  books  as  if  they  were  Scripture.  Most  of  the  early 
Church  Fathers  had  high  regard  for  most  of  the  apocryphal  books, 
and  encouraged  their  reading  in  the  Church.  But  there  is  a  gen¬ 
eral  agreement  among  them  that  these  books  were  uncanonical 
and  consequently  inferior  to  other  Old  Testament  writings. 


69 


Note  p.  23.  Jerome  himself  says  (Preface  to  the  Books  of 
Solomon)  that  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  and  Song  of  Songs  were  done 
in  three  days,  (Pref.  to  Tobit),  Tobit  in  one  day,  and  (Pref.  to 
Judith)  Judith  in  one  lucubratiunculam ,  or  night  study,  translat" 
ing  rather  the  sense  than  word  for  word — “mag is  sensum  e  semis , 
quam  ex  verbo  verbum  transfer ens.  ’  ’ 

Note  p.  26.  Dr.  Challoner  brought  out  a  revised  edition  of 
the  Douay  Bible  in  1750.  The  notes  appended  to  the  text  of  this 
revision  are  the  ones  usually  found  with  modifications  in  the  mod¬ 
ern  Catholic  Bibles.  The  Douay  Bible  has  been  considerably 
revised  since  its  first  appearance. 

Note  p.  31.  Wycliffe’ s  reply  to  the  pope’s  summons  may  be 
found  in  Arnold’s  Select  works  of  Wycliffe,  Yol.  III.,  504-506. 

Note  2  p.  32.  I  am  aware  of  the  strenuous  efforts  to  prove 
that  English  Catholic  authorities  have  not  been  hostile  to  the  gen¬ 
eral  use  of  the  Bible.  Cardinal  Gibbons  in  The  Faith  of  Our  Fath¬ 
ers  says  that  Arundel,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  at  the  funeral 
of  Queen  Anne  in  1394  praised  her  for  diligence  in  reading 
the  four  gospels,  (which  is  all  true)  and  then  adds:  “The  Head  of 
the  Church  in  England  could  not  condemn  in  others  what  he  com¬ 
mended  in  the  Queen.’’  This  is  not  necessarily  the  right  conclu¬ 
sion.  But  the  Cardinal  failed  to  give  the  whole  history  of  Arundel 
on  the  Bible  question.  In  a  convocation  of  the  province  of  Can¬ 
terbury  held  at  Oxford  in  1408  under  the  presidency  of  Archbishop 
Arundel,  a  decree  was  passed  reading  thus:  “It  is  a  dangerous 
thing,  as  witnesseth  St.  Jerome,  to  translate  the  text  of  the  holy 
Scripture  out  of  one  tongue  into  another;  for  in  the  translation  the 
same  sense  is  not  always  kept,  as  the  same  St.  Jerome  confesseth, 
that  although  he  were  inspired,  yet  oftentimes  in  this  he  erred;  we 
therefore  decree  and  ordain  that  no  man  hereafter  by  his  own 
authority  translate  any  text  of  the  Scripture  into  English  or  any 
other  tongue  by  way  of  a  book,  pamphlet,  or  treatise;  and  that  no 
man  read  any  such  book,  pamphlet,  or  treatise,  now  lately  com¬ 
posed  in  the  time  of  John  Wycliffe  or  since,  or  hereafter  to  be  set 
forth  in  part  or  in  whole,  publicly,  or  privately,  upon  pain  of  the 
greater  excommunication,  until  the  said  translation  be  approved 
by  the  ordinary  of  the  place,  or  if  the  case  so  require,  by  the  coun¬ 
cil  provincial.  He  that  shall  do  contrary  to  this  shall  likewise  be 
punished  as  a  favourer  of  heresy  and  error.”  Foxe- Acts  &  Mon, 
III.,  245.  Quoted  here  from  Westcott’s  History  of  the  English 


TO 


Bible,  pp.  22-23.  See  also  Bagster’s  English  Hexapla — Introduc¬ 
tion. 

The  justification  for  such  a  decree  from  the  Catholic  point  of 
view,  is  found  in  another  statement  of  the  Cardinal’s  on  p.  115  of 
his  book:  “While  laboring  to  diffuse  the  word  of  God,  it  is  the 
duty,  as  well  as  the  right  of  the  Church,  as  the  guardian  of  faith, 
to  see  that  the  faithful  are  not  led  astray  by  unsound  editions.” 

But  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  Church  in  Wycliffe’s  time 
was  “laboring  to  diffuse  the  word  of  God”  by  providing  any  author¬ 
ized  version  whatever.  The  decree  amounted  therefore  to  a  vir¬ 
tual  prohibition  of  a  vernacular  Bible.  Yet  the  Cardinal  exclaims 
a  few  paragraphs  before  his  reference  to  Arundel,  “The  Catholic 
Church  the  eneinv  of  the  Bible!  Good  God!”  We  wonder  where 
the  Cardinal  got  his  authority  for  swearing — Scripture  or  Tradition. 
It  was  Arundel,  by  the  way,  that  petitioned  the  pope  to  exhume 
and  desecrate  the  ashes  of  Wycliffe. 

On  the  subject  of  persecution  for  reading  Wycliffe’s  Bible,  see 
Eadie’s  “The  English  Bible,”  pp.  89-93. 

Note  p.  35.  Authorities  differ  considerabty  on  the  date  of 
Erasmus’  professorship  at  Cambridge.  The  date  given  is  from  Dic¬ 
tionary  of  National  Biography,  art.  Tyndale. 

Note  p.  40.  For  influence  of  Tyndale’ s  Bible,  see  Seebohm’s 
Era  of  the  Protestant  Be  volution,  p.  222. 

•  Note  p.  41.  It  may  seem  strange  that  Tyndale  should  be 
martyred  after  Henry  had  severed  England  from  the  papal  power. 
But  the  Act  of  Supremacy  did  not  make  England  a  Protestant  na¬ 
tion.  Little  change  of  creed  was  made  by  Henry’s  revolt.  He  sim¬ 
ply  established  an  English  Catholicism,  and  heresy  was  still  pun¬ 
ished. 

Note  p.  44.  What  is  known  as  Cranmer’s  Bible  is  a  slightly 
revised  edition  of  the  Great  Bible  to  which  the  Archbishop  wrote  a 
preface.  From  the  fact  that  some  editions  of  the  Great  Bible  were 
printed  by  Whitchurch,  it  is  sometimes  called  by  his  name. 

Note  2,  p.  44.  Taverner  made  a  translation  in  1539,  but  it  had 
no  influence  on  any  subsequent  version. 

Note  p.  49.  Whittingham,  who  was  related  to  Calvin  by  mar¬ 
riage,  published  on  the  Continent  in  1557  his  own  version  of  the 
New  Testament.  This  was  really  the  first  English  Bible  in  which 
verses  appear.  Being  one  of  the  translators  of  the  Geneva  Bible, 
of  course  he  had  great  influence  on  that  version. 


71 

Note  p.  60.  The  Baptist,  Methodist  Episcopal,  Congregational, 
Reformed,  Presbyterian,  Episcopalian,  Lutheran,  and  Unitarian 
denominations  were  represented  on  the  American  revision  com¬ 
mittees. 

Note  p.  61.  The  reader  will  find  it  interesting  to  compare  the 
Douay,  King  James,  British  Revised,  and  American  Revised  in  Job 
19:25-27, 

Note  p.  63.  Pius  IX  is  the  pope  who  called  Bible  societies 
one  of  the  pests  of  modern  times. — Syllabus  of  Errors,  Section  IV, 
1864. 

Note  2,  p.  63.  See  marginal  note  in  the  Revised  Version  on 
Mark  16:9-20.  It  is  the  Sinaitic  and  Vatican  Codices  that  are  re¬ 
ferred  to. 

Note  p.  67.  For  the  substantial  identity  of  all  manuscript 
copies  of  the  New  Testament  see  Appendix  to  Westcott  &  Iiort’s 
Greek  New  Testament,  Harper  &Bros.  1893,  pp.  560-562.  “If  com¬ 
parative  trivialities,  such  as  changes  of  order,  the  insertion  or  omis¬ 
sion  of  the  article  with  proper  names,  and  the  like,  are  set  aside, 
the  words  in  our  opinion  still  subject  to  doubt  can  hardly  amount 
to  more  than  a  thousandth  part  of  the  whole  New  Testament.’ ’ 


72 


?5ihltugrnp!iy. 

Those  who  desire  to  make  a  more  extensive  study  of  this  sub¬ 
ject  will  find  the  following  wTorks  helpful: — 

Introduction  to  Holy  Scriptures. —Harmon. 

The  Canon  of  the  Bible. —Samuel  Davidson. 

History  of  the  Canon  of  Holy  Scriptures.  -  Edward  Reuss,  1891. 
(Hardly  excelled  on  the  canon.) 

Utantrsttipts. 

How  We  Got  our  Bible. — J.  Paterson  Smyth,  1899.  (Not  al¬ 
ways  authoritative,  but  a  good  popular  presentation  of  the  subject 
of  Bible  transmission.) 

Our  Bible  and  the  Ancient  Manuscripts. — F.  G.  Kenyon,  M.A., 
Ass’t  Keeper  of  Mss.  in  the  British  Museum,  1903.  (An  excellent 
work.) 

(Knglisb 

Bagster’s  English  Hexapla. 

Wy cliff e  and  Purvey’ s  N.  T.,  Forshall  and  Madden,  1879. 

The  First  Printed  English  N.  T.  translated  by  William  Tyn- 
dale,  edited  by  Ed^ward  Arber,  1871.  Facsimile  Reprint.  (Arber’s 
preface  is  an  interesting  and  illuminating  production.) 

The  History  of  the  English  Bible. — W.  F.  Moulton,  1878. 

The  Evolution  of  the  English  Bible. — W.  H.  Hoare,  1901. 

The  English  Bible. — John  Eadie,  1876. 

A  General  view  of  the  History  of  the  English  Bible. — West- 
cott,  1868. 

The  Part  of  Rheims  in  the  Making  of  the  English  Bible. — J.  G. 
Carlton,  1902. 

Roman  Catholic  and  Protestant  Bibles  Compared. — Gould 
Prize  Essays,  1905. 


